Sample Chapters

PART 1 CLEAR SEEING
Ch. 2: Using Both Sides of the Brain

The brain has two halves, each with a different style of thinking and a different energy. The left brain is the know-it-all. It is the master of expressing itself logically, verbally, and in written words. It is analytical, rational, objective, and detail oriented as it focuses on each step in any process. The right side is sometimes called “the silent partner”; it expresses itself randomly, through rhythms, patterns, and pictures. It cannot articulate itself in words. It is visual, intuitive, subjective, and overview oriented as it focuses on all the interrelationships between the steps in any process. The left side is time centered and the right side is timeless. The left side is linguistic, while the right is musical. The left side is aggressive, while the right side is yielding.
Betty Edwards, in her book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, shows us the power of using both sides of the brain. She believes that everyone can draw, even those who don't think they can. First, she asks her students to draw a picture of Picasso’s "Portrait of Igor Stravinsky." Then she asks them to turn the Picasso portrait upside down and draw it again. When the students compare the two drawings, they find that the right-side-up one is quite poor, while the upside down one is rather good. Edwards offers the following explanation: “The left brain refused the task of processing the upside-down image. Presumably, the left hemisphere, confused and blocked by the unfamiliar image, turned off, and the job passed over to the right hemisphere.” The left brain is forced to admit that the right brain did a better job.
Parenting, at least within our Western society, has ignored this “right-brained” way of thinking. Take a look at all the how-to books available to parents. Most of them focus on the left brain aspect of parenting, or how to evaluate and change behaviors. But parenting is a whole-brain activity. The energy of the left side says “take charge,” while the energy of the right side says “flow.” If we learn to balance the left side with the right side, what might happen to our families? I believe we can learn to use both sides of the brain and “draw” families that think and express emotion openly, freely, and heartfully?

Use your whole brain to draw your family together.

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PART 2 CARING FOR THE SEED
Ch. 8: The Seed

From her face I could see that she relished the pace of the work world.
“Mom, you must have been terribly bored staying at home when I was a child,” I said.
“Bored? Housework is boring. But you were never boring.”
I didn’t believe her, so I pressed. “Surely children are not as stimulating as a career.”
“A career is stimulating,” she said. “I’m glad I had one. But a career is like an open balloon. It remains inflated only as long as you keep pumping. A child is a seed. You water it. You care for it the best you can. And then it grows all by itself into a beautiful flower.” —New York Times 6/25/89 article by Suzanne Chazin

Patience, nurturing, and attention to cultivation will yield a sturdy child. Try to take some time each day (at least fifteen minutes, say) to play and connect one-on-one with each of your children. During this time, let your child take the lead. If your son wants you to go under the bed and hide so the bad prince won’t find you, then go under the bed. If your daughter wants you to dress her doll up to be an evil black ghost and make a deadly potion for everyone to drink, then whip up a wicked outfit and mix up that drink! Whether it’s a six-year-old talking about his dinosaurs, or a ten-year-old talking about her collection of stuffed animals, get involved and follow their lead. Talk about a different dinosaur. Tell a story about your favorite stuffed animal as a child. Do whatever it takes to share and connect.
My fifteen-year-old loves to talk about computers and the latest equipment. Since I am fairly illiterate on this subject, I need to get up to speed about his passion in order to have interesting conversations with him. It’s a challenge keeping up with the newest computer “stuff” out there. My thirteen-year-old loves coins and basketball cards, two more things I know little about. So I do some reading about different money and its value, and I scan the sports page in the paper.
One night when I was tucking James into bed, he said he didn’t get his special, one-on-one time yet. I could tell that trying to deter him until the next day was going to be tough. He wanted to teach my husband and me the macarena! So we flowed with it, and he had us doing the steps with the music blasting for the next fifteen minutes! The benefits of this special time are numerous. You will discover your children’s needs, especially their emotional and psychological needs. Your listening skills will deepen and improve. Best of all, your relationship will deepen into greater warmth, kindness, closeness, and openness, as you cultivate the seed of your child’s inner essence.

Play totally with each of your children for
fifteen minutes a day.

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PART 4: COMMUNICATING

Ch. 27: At the End of Your Rope

That long and rocky 12,700 ft. climb up Chair Mountain deep within the Colorado Rockies took two ten-hour days. During a 140-foot high drop, the rappel rope slipped off my shoulder. I was hanging in mid-air, with no mechanism to guide my journey from the cliff above to the ground below. A safety rope, attached around my waist and held taut by a belayer on the cliff above, offered comfort. At this dangling point I knew two things—that I couldn’t fall to my death because of the belayer’s safety line and that I was completely in charge of my own experience! To correct the situation, I had to secure myself on a precariously small rock ledge, putting full trust in my belayer, another nineteen-year-old student.
During any rappel, one “rappel rope” is attached to the climber and a second “safety rope” is held in place by the belayer. A belayer serves as an anchor, holding the safety line as the climber moves down. Besides securing the climber at the end of the safety rope, the belayer’s very presence offers support and encouragement. With the rappel rope now off my shoulder, I knew I had to show great poise and calm, despite the intense stress. The feeling that I was totally on my own was overpowering, even though the belayer’s efforts to hold me in place were keeping me stationary.
An instructor on a ledge above could only give me verbal advice. It was just several days earlier that I had learned the basics of rappelling and strategic rock climbing, but the course had been brief. I wasn’t sure if my “ropes course” had prepared me for my present situation, but I had to trust myself. Trust had always been an inner challenge in the past, but now it was an urgent, physical one. I vividly remember the feel of the narrow rock ledge where I put my hands and feet. I remember evaluating how strong it was and how long it could hold me. The ledge felt hard as my hands moved desperately along the rocks. I thought of my belayer and had to trust that he would hold me there and not let me fall. The feeling that I was completely on my own kept returning. I had to figure out what to do and then calmly execute the plan. I had to trust myself.
We weren’t really sure what the purpose of Outward Bound was twenty-eight years ago. Looking back, I think it was about listening to yourself, following your instincts, and learning about trust. Everyone has an inner voice. We must train ourselves to listen to it.
Like rock climbers, children too must learn to listen inwardly and to trust themselves. A child, much like a climber, is essentially on his own. Parents are like belayers in that sometimes there isn’t a whole lot to do except hold the child in place, prevent him from falling, and offer encouragement, while he learns to listen to and trust himself.

Encourage children to listen inwardly
and to trust themselves.

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PART 6: CULTURE BUILDING

Ch. 38: Mirroring

Mirroring is the process of becoming part of a culture by practicing the group’s norms again and again until they become automatic and habitual behavior. It enables the culture of the group to be perpetuated over time. In order for this to occur, family members watch carefully and listen intently to the spoken and unspoken signals that family members use to interact with each other. Once they have observed the “rituals” of the group, they begin to mirror, or imitate the behaviors they have observed until they become second nature. In this way, they learn and adapt to their particular family cultures, with all of their uniqueness, peculiarities, and eccentricities.
Unfortunately, most parents want their children to simply mirror the existing family culture rather than to participate in transforming it. They want them merely to observe and imitate rather than to filter, enrich, and interact with the cultural information they receive. Sadly, under this scenario, the sparkling insights and perspectives of children don’t have a chance to develop and add to the family culture—and children learn the habit of mindlessly adopting the current cultural norms. In such a family setting, you’ll often hear questions from a child like “Why is it done that way?” or “Why don’t you include me in that decision?” or “Why do people always argue with what the child suggests?” The typical response is: “Because that’s just the way we do it around here.”
I know of an authoritarian family where children have learned that no one should ever say anything “negative” at meals. Meals became show-off times, where family members reported only positive news—how many A’s had been received at school or how many points scored in soccer. The more positive information formally presented, the better. At this family's table, there were no opportunities to express doubts, brainstorm, try out new ideas, or express more than a very narrow range of emotions.
Sharing a mistake and what was learned from it would not fit into this family culture. Such expressive behavior was considered inappropriate. The children had to learn this cultural norm in order to be accepted into that culture. They were encouraged to mirror this norm and not change their culture. Yet a child’s natural way of expressing creative ideas, doubts, and thoughts can often regenerate the family culture or help it to evolve in a positive way.
Why shouldn’t children have a say in the norms and values of their family culture? If we close ourselves off to our children’s input because they’re “just children,” we disempower them with the belief that trying to change a group’s culture is usually a fruitless endeavor. The culture of a family should include the desired norms and values of all its members. If you think this is way above the heads of children, ask some ten-year-olds what their values are. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by their insights.

Every family member should have a say in establishing
and changing family norms and values.

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