HELPING PARENTS HELP KIDS

Washinton D.C. military parade; 2000+ protests and demonstrations planned across the Nation on Trump’s birthday; United States Marines carry out detention of civilian in Los Angeles; 4000 National Guard troops and 700 United States Marines deployed in Los Angeles; and Trump made millions on guitars, bibles and watches with his name on them…these have been media headlines. An analytical glance will establish the least common denominator to be President Donald J. Trump, his administration and their followers.

There are several actions one can take to counter the chaos, power, and dictatorship of this administration. 1) Start your own peaceful protest or demonstration; 2) Participate in planned peaceful protests and demonstrations in local communities; 3) Organize and/or participate in campaigns to change elected individuals during 2026 mid-term elections; 4) Organize and/or participate in campaigns to change elected individuals during the 2028 Presidential Election; and 5) Help parents help the kids learn and experience how to show up authentically. Helping parents help the kids takes some explanation.

Recently, the “mind chatter” and “heart flutter” have been alive with thoughts about helping kids by supporting potential parents, marital partners and partners who are planning to have children, and parents who have children. Let’s take a quick look:

• As Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, recommended several years ago, potential parents, i.e., young folks who are thinking about marriage, and/or becoming partners, and having children, need to learn, understand, and experience the challenges and opportunities associated with having children and raising children in today’s world. The country needs literature and programs to facilitate this learning process for potential parents before they get married, or become partners, and before they opt to get pregnant and have children.
• Folks who opt to get pregnant and have children need to learn about and understand how to quiet the mind-meditation is a must-and engage, hook-up, emotional/feeling empathy and compassion before the kids arrive. For happiness and authenticity, peace-of-mind is essential, and one’s purpose and connections need to be created on a foundation of empathy and compassion.
• Potential parents and soon to be parents need to learn, understand, reflect upon, experience, and practice how to coach kids through processing positive and negative emotional/feeling-experiences at the time of the experiences. Simply learn to become a first-class, on-the-spot therapist for their kids. This emotions/feelings processing will help the kids be authentically male or female and not grow up like the culture dictates, i.e., as a masculine or feminine presented self.

We are witnessing in today’s headlines folks who have grown up and are behaving and making decisions based on culture dictated masculinity and femininity norms. For us to evolve absent overwhelming hate, chaos, division, and confusion, these norms need to change; and the beginning of this changes needs to be with our children as they are growing up and experiencing emotions and feelings. These experiences of feelings need to change from culturally dictated norms to what is being experienced and processed by children as they are felt. This is a huge coaching job for parents and much needed for the country to evolve past reading headlines as we are noting daily, simply culturally dictated masculinity via ego and position power.