Joy Based Parenting: What do I know?
Parents often ask me if I can promise them their children will turn out
ok if they choose to parent the Purejoy way. I can honestly look at
them and say, I have no idea. All I know is I can never know how my
daughter will turn out. If only I had that crystal ball. What I do know is
when I stay present and keep from projecting all my fears of the future
onto her, I relax and enjoy seeing her discover her own way. And honestly,
I am always astounded by what appears before my eyes.
I chose not to teach my daughter about saving or spending money. I knew
I had enough baggage of my own so I didn’t want to project onto her how
I did money. So, what happened is the minute she got any money in her
pocket we were headed to Target. Even though I was chomping at the bit
to teach her about “how to spend her money” I kept my mouth shut. I
continued to work with my internal stories, which were demanding I teach her
about money, and went for the ride curious to see how she internalized her
own experience.
For Christmas she asked for gift cards from all her relatives. Some were from
Target so I figured we would be heading down their the next day. Well, lo
and behold, to my great surprise, she told me she wanted to save them.
Believe it or not, we went to Target four times and she never spent a penny.
She walked around the store checking out all the prices and making the
decision to “hold onto her money”. I was truly in awe watching her make her
own choices and learning about money. I didn’t need to say a word…. All I
could think is, “what do I know?”
Practice: When you want to “teach” your child about something see if you
can get curious and see what they already know. Open your heart and your
mind to a “don’t know” attitude and see if you can find out something you
didn’t know about your child.
