Clarification…

Being loving and gentle does not mean allowing your “other” to do and have anything s/he wants.  If you are treating your partner and/or your kids this way, then I must tell you, that you are mistaken.  Recall that codependence comes out of a very small and subtle beginning.  We allow our loved one to speak inappropriately and then we allow our loved one to be rude and brusque and before we know it, we are being abused.

How do we assure that people do not treat us badly?  We must let them know in an unrelenting conversation what the effect of their behavior is on ourself.  It’s important that we do this from the beginning of the relationship and not wait until we are being abused.

I mean this!  Start with your infant.  It is quite the thing these days to allow the child to run the household.  We know that this is not the correct way of doing things, but it is the easy way to do things.  Conflict is difficult and who wants to participate in anything that is difficult?  Easier to let the “wild child” to just run free.

Mistake.

If you have a “wild child” you make a mistake if you let this child run free.  I’ll admit that parenting is a complex combination of who-I-am and who-you-are; it is important for parents to remember that kids NEED real limits placed on their behavior.  It’s not an option to gallivant and roam freely in this United States.  To allow a child to think this, is an error for the child.  The child grows up with expectations of an easy-going world, which, of course, does not exist.

Do the difficult thing including the nurture, nourish, it’s the right thing to do…