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Samstag, 26. März 2011

'indigo' - manipulation or consequence?

Today I talked to the mother of a 11 year old I am tutoring. We had some time to talk because the kid had left a message on the answering machine that he was staying at someone's place after school. He had apparently forgotten about our appointment and so I decided to get to know the mom a bit.
We talked about the problems he had at school, his current marks and that he wouldn't be able to manage the step into comprehensive school in autumn. She said she had had him tested for ADD and hyperactivity, but that the test had shown that he is not a 'typical case' in that he can focus if he wants to. Lol! Sure, they all can - I said. It just has to be interesting enough to them. In fact it's the same for anybody. We all have to push harder when it's not interesting. It seems to be especially hard for those kids that we ultimatively label with ADS.
I remembered how our son settled into the more boring subjects as Latin and German once he had begun smoking and drinking coffee and coke in the boarding school that offered classes of only 7-9 pupils. I told her how strange I had found it that caffeine calmed him down. I guess the whole neurology or 'energetics' are somehow askew like when the meridians run the other way around.
She told me it was really hard to get him to hand in assignments and, in general, do homework, and to remember to be at home when i come. She says he is an outsider and probably at the moment influenced by a new kid in his class who acts up pretty often and is rather disruptive. She also mentioned having read about Indigos and how special they are said to be. I was on the verge of presenting my view on this topic, but then I decided to breathe and hear her out.
This turned out to be a cool experience for me, because I settled back into myself and listened to what resumé she came. I was astonished to hear her say that she found this to be of no value if he didn't act in a socially responsible way, for example helping to stack the freshly cut wood in front of the house or do some chores. A friend had told her she could be proud of having an Indigo child and we agreed on the point of what was the use of this label if there is no consideration for the group.
So it was cool to not have to clear this point of 'indigo' and 'being special' and go into considering how to practically go about supporting him to realize what his responsibilities are. We discussed the pros and cons of having him pay for the lesson he was missing, but I felt he would resent the lesson more that way and maybe build up more resistance. We couldn't really think of any way that didn't have to do with some sort of manipulation. She then concluded she wouldn't take him to the skateboard park for the promised time once a week - where she would have to wait for him - if he didn't commit to his assignments. I told her she might try telling him that he is allowing and accepting self-defeat when he keeps on avoiding even though he does say he wants to change to the comprehensive school.
Well, we'll see if that helps.


How can one 'make' a child be more responsible? Or anyone for that matter? Consequence. But when is consequence manipulation in family settings? Seem to be quite close, the two. Too much 'natural consequence' often makes it be too late within the school system.

Dienstag, 22. März 2011

a p.s. to the last entry on 'too much - too little: frustration'

As a p.s. to what I wrote yesterday concerning students that I tutor and the obvious resistance toward the subject matter, I noticed it has sometimes helped to state that I'm spending this one and a half hour period of time with the person no matter what and he can tell me how he wants to approach the subject we're concerned with - and in that allowing him to direct himself through the lesson and the material. I just lean back in the chair and breathe and let him consider how he wants to take it from 'Here'. This has helped me take myself out of the 'presenter-mode' of laying everything out in front of him - which he had simply decided not to engage in and thus reject or resist.

This is something I can allow more often. I guess it brings back a certain challenge and allows them to place themselves into a starting point of self-direction and away from 'being the victim' of having to study this stuff.

But this only works with some. Often there is such a degree of being overwhelmed with the material, of feeling lost and not-knowing where to start, as they have allowed themselves to be discouraged early on and so there is no basis to build on; there is a self-perception, self-belief to be looked at too.

Sometimes the situation has been such that I asked what the problem is considered to be, what issue they have with the subject matter or the teacher, the situation at school or even with the parents or brothers and sisters. I find when the child/teenager has been able to address these points by simply stating them, talking about them a bit and accepting them being there for the moment, they realize that this is what is here at the moment and they allow themselves to be Here more. I say that he shouldn't let this direct him, he should take a deep breath, breathe out and consider what he wants to look at w/r/t the subject matter.

It's a permanent process of pushing through the starting point of self-defeat when I get the answer 'I don't know' (euphemism for 'I don't care') when I ask what they consider best to have a look at, what they need support with.

Actually it all boils down to being Here as who-we-are and facing the issues that are presenting themselves-as-us at the moment, instead of having pre-conceived ideas of what-to-present, or how to go about a lesson, or what is to be achieved. It's about us, who-we-are and what we allow as us and being Here together to see this, to face ourselves within and as it. The resistances toward something as a reflection of what we have allowed.

too much - too little: frustration

I sometimes allow the feeling within and as me that I need to do more than others for the same or similar task. It's as if I needed to compensate for a lack, a deficiency, an inadequacy. In this I'm accepting and allowing that I make such an effort within getting useful reading material or practice sheets etc, things that in the end are not valued, in fact are not even necessary. It turns out that the expectations weren't there, the support wasn't 'inherently' welcome. There I was preparing for lessons, for courses, for perceived needs that I thought I needed to address - but in actuality it was sometimes even seen as annoying and bothersome, especially with people who just wanted to sit the time out and get it over with somehow. I was trying to support unemployed people who didn't want to see their own responsibility or the chance of being supported. Or the starting point of minimalism in teenagers saying 'passt scho' (= it suffices/it's sufficient) = I don't need to really go into it more than I am = I don't want to actually understand it. It remains superficial.

So, on the one hand I tend to overdue 'support' for my own reasons of 'feeling inadequate' - which I am addressing within a TL or two (or maybe more!) in the current mc I'm doing. On the other hand there is this extreme of some of the guys not even taking advantage of a minimum of what could be achieved in the time spent together. And some are trying to understand, are working through the lessons we do together and it just doesn't stick, they apply the knowledge in the exercises and seem to forget everything again in a test situation. They're trying to learn it as 'apart from themselves', in separation. And then it's just there floating around in their heads without context obviously. And there is only 'so much' of context that is available to embed the subject matter. Like within a computer game setting... only.

One thing I found that was prominent though with most kids was the circumstance that they didn't completely read what the exercise was about, what is wanted of them. They skip the task description and pick out only one or the other word and then guess what they are to do. This has been something I keep addressing and pointing out, but, I don't know, they just forget. They're not taking themselves seriously enough to actually read the instructions.

Well, so much for today. Got that off my mind for now.

Sonntag, 20. März 2011

what is this correction that I want to live?

Since my childhood (or most probably a lot longer) I have wanted to live my self as me, without judgment or limitation. And now, within writing out the realizations from the self-forgiveness on the events and experiences exposed within the timelines it is hard not to get lost within all the details and rumifications of my allowances and acceptances. At last I am giving myself the chance of scripting myself anew, as life, as equal and one with and as myself - and it's still so 'held-back', only trickling forth little by little.

So I'm placing this statement here as a reassertion:

I allow and accept myself to be patient with myself when and as expressing and placing into words what this correction I want to live as and within myself will be.

Donnerstag, 17. März 2011

the complexity of things

Why is it taking me so long to get some orientation within these systems of networks, blogger, facebook, multiply, youtube, google, dotsub and all their interconnections and specificities? I have recently felt quite frustrated with not-knowing which box to click to get to where I want to go and how to manouver through these nooks and crannies of all the levels and sublevels of the internet applications. Adding to that was the time constraint I had within which I wanted to establish this and get it all together, interlinked and working. I'd like to have the whole internet mapped out in front of me, like the plan of a subway system, to see where to go and exactly what I'm doing.

On the face of it the sites seemed to be quite obvious, but 'underneith' there are mazes of networks wherein some connections go well with each other and others don't seem to be compatible completely or at all. Like with the syndication of my Multiply blog with NetworkedBlogs. I checked if it was being syndicated after I had clicked on the respective box, but nothing there. Also getting to the right pages to have the basics in place and find out how to get all the blogs I want to follow onto the blog list with this blog was quite an act and I still don't have them all there, though it says I'm 'following' them already - but then I noticed that I was following them on NetworkedBlogs and not via this blog here. I had somehow, inadvertently, moved to that page while going through the bloggers on the list of someone I had already 'secured' on my list.

I don't even know how to place my odyssee through this intricate 'underground mazelike world' of levels, 'bifurcations' and dead-ends into words... I guess I was getting a small glance of what is inside me as the experience of me toward my partner and my participation within the individual play-outs and realizing the complexity and multitude of dimensions of it - and also found it reflected in my dealings and manouvers on the web.

Well, anyway, I have allowed this, my job, work on the mind construct and my daughter's finals to prevent me from writing myself out. And once I let the time interval from the last entry to the present moment increase more and more the harder it gets to start writing again. And the more it seems that I don't know what to write about. It's as if the more I write, the more I know what to write about, and vice versa.

So, at least now, I've made a start again, here, and I intend to push myself to make it one of my daily priorities to keep myself within a steady stable flow of placing myself into words. Obviously, by doing so, other activities will get clearer and more transparent too.

Within writing this, I also realize that i have even lost track of placing myself within and as breath while trying to keep my head above water, getting a bit lost within the demands of the day plus working on getting to the bottom of allowed and accepted patterns which i still have to fully uncover and place into words. There is quite some resistance against seeing the totality and scope of the patterns and finding walkable self corrective steps to direct myself out of them into being here a bit more...

Sonntag, 13. März 2011