Why ‘Doing Your Best’ Isn’t Enough in Parenting | Eckhart Tolle

The main factor that makes teenagers so angry, because they know there's something important missing. And often they're angry at their parents. And their parents have done all they thought they could do, all the best, that doing your best is not enough.

Many children, almost all children already have pain bodies, some stronger than others. And that's another important point here, where when you observe.

The tantrum earlier in the previous session today, somebody said their mind.

Sometimes feels like a toddler's tantrum taking place in their mind. Yes, the tantrums of toddlers can be quite violent. They may throw themselves on the floor and scream or throw.

And that is the pain body. So I would highly recommend, and this should be done at schools as part of.

The curriculum and there should be children, there are a few children's books that teach, that also teach the child to be aware of their pain body, not while it happens, because nobody will be listening to you.

You cannot make up even an adult, you cannot make them aware of their pain body in the middle of a pain body attack. That does not work because the only person you'll be speaking to is a pain body and the pain body won't like it.

But afterwards, the next day, these talkie talked to the child. What happened yesterday when you threw yourself on the floor, what was that? What? What was that thing that got into you? Do you remember that? What was that thing?

What did that feel like? If you had to make a drawing of it, what would it look like? That thing that got into you, what would that look like? What color is it?

Encourage the child to place attention on the emotion. In other words, there's a presence there. Instead of being the emotion, the child can begin to become aware of the emotion. This does not necessarily prevent the next pain body attack, but then you do it again next femur and then next day you say that happened again. Was it the same thing? Did it feel the same as before?

Was it the same little gremlin there? If it's child, but let the child use the terms.

And then yes, it was okay, encourage perhaps the child to make a little painting of it and the next time it happens, then you can say.

In the middle of it or at the beginning of a pretty, the tantrum is starting to happen, then you can say, ah, there it is again, isn't it?

And that can bring in awareness even while it's happening. But.

You need to prepare the child first, otherwise it won't work.

And that may not necessarily stop, will probably continue, but at least a little bit of awareness will have come in there it is again, isn't it? Yeah. No it isn't. It's not.

So.

I also remember as a child there was a time in my early teens I had very negative emotions, very self destructive, violent emotions. I didn't act them out unfortunately, but.

I was almost consumed by very destructive emotions. And of course nobody had any idea of presence or mindfulness at that time. Anywhere would have been unheard of. And virtually all parents were very unconscious. At least nowadays there are. There's a certain percentage of parents that are relatively conscious and bring up their children consciously as much as possible. But even then you will find that the difficulty of dealing with the child's emotions so very important at an early age begin to teach the child to be conscious of their emotions rather than being taken over by the emotions. The worst thing you can do is when the child has a pain body attack.

Allow it to trigger your pain body, which unfortunately happens quite a lot too. Because the energy of the pain body is so raw and there's such aggression in it that an unconscious parent will be drawn into deeper unconsciousness and then react and start shouting stop it, Stop it. Of course it won't stop it. So the pain body has spread even to the parent.

So these are all important things to bring presence so that the teenage years and become a little easier. Another important thing that also should be practiced at school, but it's home environment is very important. How do the parents live.

When you bring up children?

The greatest teaching is how the family relates to it, how the parents relate to each other and so on. That's what the children absorb rather than what they are being told. That.

There should be the household, there should be presence in the household, in the family environment. And.

A very important aspect of that is.

To listen to the child. It's amazing that this should be practiced also at schools but more importantly at home for the parent to listen to the child. And you would be amazed how many cases that doesn't happen at all because the parents are so lost in doing. They have a busy life, they are lost in doing. And the only way they interact with the child is. Is either telling the child what to do or what not to do. Don't do that. Have you done this? Now you need to do that. Have you done your homework? Okay. And they mean well. They want to do the best for their child and encourage the child to do the right thing. Don't go there. Don't knock that. Just have you brushed your teeth? Don't go brush your teeth. Okay. Good night.

The.

They don't to give. By when I say listen, I mean to give the child attention beyond any doing or not doing. Give the child attention.

What happened today? How are you feeling? What? Tell me this. Give it. It doesn't matter what the child says, but you direct attention.

Not attention that involves doing, pure attention. The child wants to be recognized by the parent in its being. And if the child does not, if the parent does not recognize the child in its being, the child can feel unconsciously that there is something missing. It wants to be recognized in its beingness, not just do the right thing. It's not the doing. Doing is necessary, but the being is so. And then that is one of perhaps the main factor. Factor that makes teenagers so angry because they know there's something important missing. And often they're angry at their parents. And their parents have done all they thought they could do, all the best. They brushed it, brush their teeth every night.

And make sure that they do their homework. Now have you done that? And he said, no, it wasn't enough.

Doing your best is not enough because what's missing is being. So no matter how.

Much you do, it's not enough. You have to bring in the dimension of being in the interaction with your child. So give them attention.

That means you too have to refrain from doing for a moment.

And be with the child first. You have to be with yourself. You have to.

Go deep enough so that you can be present. And then you look at the child and that's. And you don't want anything from him or her. You just look and then perhaps words happen. You talk a bit. What did you do today? It doesn't matter what the child says, that the attention that you give.

That'S what the child longs for. It wants to be recognized by the parent in its being. And so that in this world that is still relatively rare. Unfortunately, that's one of the biggest.

Mistakes parents make. But they can't help it because they haven't recognized it in themselves. So in order to live this, you need to recognize it in yourself and then you can live it.

So there's a lot there that is possible and necessary in the upbringing of a child. And I know that more and more teachers are becoming interested in this. And more and more teachers are bringing it.

Into their classroom. Not officially yet in many cases, but they introduce some elements of presence or mindfulness into their classroom. But it needs to be. We practice on a much larger scale because the world is going to. What's that weird expression? To hell in a hand basket? I don't know where that comes from, but.

It'S not moving in the right direction. You might have noticed. And there is a lot of unhappiness in children and a lot of early. They're prescribed mind altering drugs at an early age when that is not necessary. In fact, it's bad just because the parents are not present. They don't even know what presence is. They don't know any better.

So all this is. These are very important changes that need to happen.

Sa.