I’m so excited! Tomorrow I’m going to be posting the audio of the Lisa William’s channeling event where Erik came through. The way she describes him is so uncannily accurate. So an audience of 700-800 got to see our rascal in action. Attention whore!! (I love you, Erik.) Here’s Erik’s take on parenting 101. If you have trouble with your kids, I really, really recommend you read my second parenting book, Hearing is Believing: How Words Can Make or Break Our Kids. Just a few simple tweaks in language can actually transform your family life from chaos to Nirvana. I’m not trying to plug the book and get you guys to buy it. You can check it out in many libraries for free!

Me: Okay, what are some tips on how to parent children? Give me some of the main ones. I could have used them 5 kids ago, but go ahead. Better late than never.

Jamie: He’s up and pacing.

Erik: You really want to ask that? Oh my god.

Me: Well give me a couple of big ones. Throw me out a couple.

(Pause)

Jamie: Oh, he’s really excited!

Erik: Okay, just a couple of big ones. Number one—

(Pause)

Jamie (to Erik): Yeah, just stick to the parenting thing.

I can’t believe I’m asking one of my children about parenting. Who’d have thunk?

Erik: Listen to the child’s emotional needs, not to what they’re saying. They don’t always have the right words, or sometimes they misuse the words. Listen to the emotions. Number two: let the child lead even though you might think they’re immature or that they are too little. They know their safety. They know their boundaries. Yes, we’re not going to let them lead themselves across a highway just because they understand what a fast moving car can do. I’m not saying that. I’m saying that there are times that you are holding them back for fear that something might happen even in a area that’s generally safe, let’s say a playground or a field. Don’t run after them because you want to see what they’re stepping on or you want to, uh, sometimes you just need to let them take care of themselves.

Me: Yeah, and discover their environment, discover their abilities, figure out how to use their bodies.

Erik: Yes. My third big one would be: Ask your child what they feel and what they need. You’d be so surprised to find that they have an understanding way beyond what you’d expect. Sometimes I’ll see a mom or a dad feel or think that they’re really needed, that they’re there to raise that child, and that’s exactly what they’ll do. They don’t ever stop and ask, “What are your needs, and what are you feeling?”

Me: Okay, those are all good. What can we do about problem teenagers? Why do they become that way, and what can we do to help them?

Erik: That’s hard because “problem” is a really big word. We have to take into consideration hormone imbalances; mental imbalance, emotional imbalance, and then we need to look at their nutrition. We also have to look at whether the child is being undermined, not being respected. So problems can arise from all of those. If you can’t figure it out yourself, then you need to sit down with a therapist or a doctor to see where your child fits into those problems.

Me: How can we raise our kids to be more spiritual?

Erik: Start from the beginning by letting the child have more respect and boundaries and treating them as emotional beings.

Me: What about their schooling? Is there anything we can do to change schools such that they help us raise our kids to be more spiritual?

Jamie is using her hands to show that Erik is talking a mile a minute.

Jamie: He’s way ahead of you.

This is a subject Erik is passionate about.

Erik: I don’t like the public school structure that puts the teacher as the authority figure and sets up the class to fit the extrovert where it’s designed for all kids to do the same task to reach a number goal. Fucking pisses me off.

Me: I know. I don’t care for it either.

Erik: It’s not giving us what we need. We do all understand that the public school system was designed by some person who thought, “Oh, we have more than one child. We can’t teach each one in the way that they need so we’re going to design a format that everyone should fit into.” It’s not working, and now, with technology growing and booming, we’re not using it in our classroom [in the way that we should] whether it’s for financial reasons or ignorance—they don’t believe it can do anything for the child, that it’s just a distraction. We’re missing out on experiences. Kids learn by experiences, not by sitting down and being told the story about how somebody else traveled or explored or discovered something. Schools can be designed to teach through experiences and customized with visual or audio or kinetic learning [depending on the needs of the child.] And the kids can learn at their own pace. You’d be surprised.

Me: Like a Montessori School.

Erik: Yes. Yes, Montessori fits some kids. You’d be surprised that kids who learn at their own pace can sometimes graduate at the age of 15.

Me: Could they also—and will they—embed things into the curriculum that are spiritual like learning how to meditate, learning how to energy heal, learning how to get centered, grounded.

Erik: I think what needs to be put into every curriculum is Nonviolent Communication to learn to speak through emotional needs.

Me: Great book.

Erik: That also helps with conflict resolution. I believe that finding your center can be taught in every school. For some kids, that might be sitting still and meditating. For other kids it might be yoga or singing. We have to teach to their audio, visual and kinetic strengths. One other thing that should be taught: along with the respiratory system, the digestive system and other systems is the energetic system.

Me: Oh yeah. The chakras.

Erik: Yeah, we have enough information on it now that we can use it to help heal our bodies, our emotional selves, boost our confidence—we’d have some bad ass kids in the States.

Me: I know! I think we’re just going to have to start out with charter schools. You guys out there, start one! We need them badly. Then maybe that’ll spread through the public school system.

I guess that’s a short one for today. I’m going to take my first stab and vlogging Friday with my new camera. Wish me luck because I suck at things like this! TTFN!