Silly no more

      It beagn when my son was tiny. I found myself about to use common adult phrases such as "You're so silly." I caught myself. I stopped myself from saying it. I didn't know why, but I knew it would not be an appropriate practice for me to begin. I didn't do it with my older children, what was this? So, when they would be trying to be doing something funny, I would ask them "Are  you trying to be funny?". It felt more appropriate and I began to differentiate it's various uses. By replacing that one catch-all phrase, I began to be able to differentiate behaviors and address them indidivually. When inapropriately invading another person's space, I was no longer excusing it by calling it silly behavior. I became more confident in what I was doing, in my own parenting. Another way we use silly I picked up on was to minimize undesirable behaviors such as "story telling" so we don't have to feel the full impact of calling it lying. In so doing, we repress our own feelings of it and teach our children to minimize stealing and lying: "What is wrong with me stealing a little or a little bit of lying? I'm just being silly".
     Then my daughter began with charector voices and calling everything by a variety of phrases such as "crazy", "gross", etc. when something wasn't even offensive or distasteful to her, "scary" when she didn't even find it frightening, she was simply expressing popular opinion and practicing imitating behavior which she did not know was popular. She was imitating a friend. I hadn't realized that yet when she began doing it. I only knew it made me uncomfortable. She was degrading everyone and everything around her for no apparent reason. The charectorization I knew came from my grandson, but I wasn't sure why I was uncomfortable with it so I only hesitantly objected. Then my grandson stopped coming around for a while but the behavior intensified. It was like living with an ornery, arrogant, disrespectful teen. She began commanding me about. Then it dawned on me; the source of it was a child my grandson had spent alot of his time with and my daughter was spending all her social time with.
     Eventualy I saw how phrases like that are our way of trying to gently dismiss behaviors we are finding annoying, invalid, innapropriate, lacking sufficient intelligence, behavior not to be taken seriously. No matter how gently we put it, it is merely excusing ourselves from the plain fact that we are being condescending or we are using it to try to avoid sounding condescending, defeating our own purposes because we are experiencing embarrassment, insecurity about our children's behaviors. Our children are not lacking intelligence, it is simply not as expereinced or developed as our own, it is not acclimated to our environment would probably be the most accurate way to put it. And as far as the tendency to offer up complaint and judgement about things that have nothing to do with us, that is inappropriate. We become aware of someone else's choices or express them to us in answer to our question, we observe others interacting, it is not our place to butt in with "that's stupid" or "that's crazy". We have not only disrespected authortiy, freedom, but have engaged in abusive practices. We have declared war on our neighbor.
     If I say I am going to homeschool my children in answer to your inquiry as to why they are not in school and you respond with all the reasons you may find that idea ridiculous or illigitimate, invalid: number one) it is not your concern why they are not in school so you are invading my privacy, undermining my authority and questioning my freedom, number two) you are abusing my intellect and emotions, declaring war on my inner kingdom. You are not "just being friendly" even if that's what you are convinced you believe. And when one realizes that this is what they are doing, instead of acknowledging it, they choose instead to avoid responsibility for it, justifying it by saying they are simply concerned about the children. They have turned the focus of blame due to their own insecurites and laying the blame on the innocent victim of their own offensive behavior, wondering why on earth the recipient would become insecure or defensive. Offensive and defensive aproaches are qualities of war and competitive sports. It's violence, pure and simple. And when you get authorities involved, it becomes oppressive acts of bullying and physical violence, intimidation.
     And this is where anxiety began to press in. I knew from experience that respectfully requesting such behavior not include my children, people get offended and I lose friends. I had to remind myself: I am not responsible for their emotions. Their reactions are their problem. I cannot sacrifice my children's entire future's well-being simply because I might be uncomfortable losing associations. For, if they are too offended due to their own insecurities to respect my wishes, they never truly were a friend. Their own misery was of more value to them than any love they might have felt for me. But I am not black and white about this. I don't simply write people off because they might take breaks from me. I try to be aware of it and not become offended when maybe they display reluctance, don't call or visit for a while.
     In going through this process I have learned that it can be exhausting and trying. Even I take breaks and engross myself in "poison" in retreat. I read a quote recently in Dr. Mate's book about how the path to enlightenment is peppered with days of drunkeness. For me, that drunkeness is epic movie binges. Grand, epic trilogies that unavoidably involve violence. It is a way of not having to think, but also an acceptence of who we have been, if we allow it to be. If we beat ourselves up for it, we are only engaging in an addiction simply created by our own resistence to our own choice of activity we believe is nothing but evil, bad for us. We judge ourselves about it and give it power over us, creating an addiction to it. But if we simply allow ourselves a break and accept that this is where we have been most comfortable in the past, we are engaging in self-acceptence and eventually we move on from it. It is no longer needed. It strikes me now how Dr. Mate and others treating those with addictions believe the brain's functioning must be changed before letting go of a drug of choice can happen. We first change the physical make-up of the brain that causes the addiction and then the addiction is released. It would be backwards and ineffective to first force upon ourselves or anyone else absitnence from the addiction then try to change the brain. It causes too much stress and undermines what we are trying to achieve. Knowing I must have patience with my own process, I have no problem being patient with others who are inadvertently triggered to begin their own inner journey or might feel they are being forced into it simply by associating with me.
    And a real friend knows that it is the love in you that motivates such honest, open comunication.