Schools Must Become Havens of SAFETY AND CREATIVITY - Don Hanley’s blog #25

While watching the Senate hearings on social media, I couldn't help but notice that many senators blamed the innovative creators of social media platforms. It made me realize (once again) that we need to bring change to our education system. We should encourage pre-teens and teens to take more responsibility and Choose Not to indulge in drugs. Schools should be centers of critical thinking, nurturing, creative imagination, personal connecting, and, most importantly, caring. I would love to see this:

All children will be able to say, “I know where I can find people who care about me. It’s at our school. Whenever I visit a school, I hear staff members and teachers say, “Hi, Don, how are you today?” And I call back, “Hi, George, or Mary, Sam, or Gladys, or . . . and on and on.”

And more and more children will say: "Mom and Dad both work, and sometimes I go to daycare after school or to an empty house, and that’s okay because both need to be able to develop their creative abilities, just like me. So, my school allows me to learn and get to know myself and other kids, adults, and high schoolers. It is a fun place to be, and the teachers help us to learn how to discover stuff. My parents thought that there was too much age segregation in our schools and society, so they wanted to change that – starting with our schools. No more kindergarten, elementary, middle school, and then high school. Now, I go to ONE school, and it is K-12."

"My mom and dad have told me that when they were in school, they were required to memorize a lot of stuff, then they were tested to see how much they memorized. Now we know that our computers can memorize much better than we can, so we spend time thinking creatively and imagining how we can make our world a better place. One of my sisters is on the autism spectrum and has difficulty remembering things, which makes it tough for her to pass any test. My mom says I am 'gifted' or 'wired differently' because I can memorize things easily and create new ideas very well. But this doesn't make me better than my sister. It just means we learn differently. Sometimes, I wish I could sing like my sister.”

We belong to two different self-understanding groups or 'cohorts.' She has smart kids in her group, while I have two kids who are on the autism spectrum in my cohort. However, we both love and cherish everyone in our respective groups. One of our teachers said that the main problems the school has is keeping students home when they are sick."

Let me know what you think about these ideas - Please. And everybody, keep . . . 

Nurturing your hearts, but Do Not eat the menus.

Two Inspiring Menus and A Banquet – Don Hanley’s blog #24

A challenging BANQUET Timothy Egan’s DAUGHTER SOPHIA GAVE TO HIM:

“I don’t like labels; I don’t have a text or Bible I consult. But I know what I believe. I value family, friends, love, community, lifelong learning, continuous self-improvement, creative expression, empathy, care of the natural world, and all the creatures who inhabit it.” Her dad, who had worried about her ‘salvation,’ responded, “You’re going to be fine.” And I would add: "Sophia is honoring the menu AND digesting the banquet!"

And I believe Thich Nhat Hanh gives us a few guidelines to meet the challenge in his book Being Peace. I hope you will like it too:

“Even though life is hard and sometimes difficult to smile, we must try. Just as we wish each other “Good morning,” it must be a real “Good morning.” Recently, one friend asked me, “How can I force myself to smile when filled with sorrow? It isn’t natural!” I told her she must be able to smile to her sorrow because we are more than our sorrow. A human being is like a television set with millions of channels. If we turn the Buddha on, we are the Buddha. If we turn on sorrow, we are sorrow. If we turn a smile on, we are the smile. We cannot let just one channel dominate us. We have the seed of everything in us, and we must seize the situation in our hand to recover our sovereignty.”

NOW, from yours truly, Don Hanley: I believe it was not until I formally retired from being “too busy” that I became aware of my true self. So, I am spending more time . . . 

Nurturing my heart and avoiding eating the menu – please join me.

On GOD, Fear, and Punishment – Don Hanley’s blog #23

I don’t know how old I was when I first heard this horrible attempt at praise: “He’s a God-fearing man.” “God-fearing”?? I thought God was supposed to be the supreme loving one; was he not?

Then, I saw a gigantic picture of God the Father sitting on a throne above the altar in our church. Is God both a horrible, cruel, bad-ass supreme being And a loving being? I was confused. Now I’m confused that so many millions believe in such a two-faced God – a god that is loving and totally cruel and hateful at the same time. One that can bless us with love, hope, kindness, and creativity and curse us with hatefulness, cruelty, fear, and helplessness. And if we perform any actions driven by the curses, then he will throw us into hell for all eternity. Wow, what a confusing bunch of beliefs.

Now, I really like a friend’s experience when he was six, “When the teacher said God was a supreme being, I thought she said, ‘Supreme Bean.” That god, I can relate to.

I like Albert Einstein’s ideas on God. He puts a modern twist on the idea of God and builds on St. John’s: “God is love, and he who lives in love, lives in God and God in him” (or her). I believe that the kind of fear that affects our view of life and of ourselves is taught to us through our family life, religious instruction, schooling, and political thinking.

In Alice Miller’s book For Your Own Good, she cites a guidebook for parents written by a Christian minister around 1900. He stated that if parents do not break a child’s spirit by the time the child is two years old, those parents will have a monster on their hands. In that same book, she states – that an infant and baby before the age of two can be severely punished by any means necessary, and that will not harm the child for life as he or she will not remember the punishment. Are you as horrified by these two ideas as I was? Sadly, I believe some form of these so-called guidelines is still running loose in too many families, churches, and schools.

This thinking and punishment leads to excessive fear, anger, and hatred toward self and others. The child growing up under these guidelines is crippled for life. So, please, follow more civil and loving guidelines for yourself and your family and your interactions with all others in this world. Now be an increasingly joyous I - Thou. and...

Nurture your heart, AND don’t eat the menu, nor fear the child in yourself.

How To Be A ‘THOU’ – Don Hanley’s blog #22

One of my most important blog editors has encouraged me to say more about how a person knows whether he/she is a ‘Thou’ person in my I-Thou kind of encounter. And how do we know if the person we are meeting with is a Thou? First, let me quote the Little Prince: “What is most important is invisible to the eye!”

To be a Thou, I must be a person who is interested in you or, at least, be curious about you. That is, I want to know your interests, such as what animals you like best, your hobbies, whether you involve yourself in sports, organizations that work for peace in the world, like meeting new people, and, well, everything. So, really, whether you are like me and really enjoy life and want to help the world be a better place. And if I am a counselor or therapist or any healing or education professional that you are consulting, do I seem to really be interested in you, do I have time for you, and have the patience to be with you?

If you are a child, especially a young one, you will feel that I am safe and a person who is interested in people like you. If you have been around the world for a while, and especially if you have been knocked around a bit or a lot, then you will want to know a bit or a lot about what I have experienced and will need me to take some time and have a generous kind of spirit and is willing to share it with you. If you only seem interested in my ‘ailments,’ you cannot be a Thou with or for me.

Ah, time. I will have to admit that I was too busy during the first third, or even half, of my life to be a good Thou person with anyone. Fortunately, I was a workaholic, so I did not do a great deal of harm to anyone except myself. And Time is one of the worst enemies of I-Thou encounters. Everyone is too busy to have time to be with others in a caring, I-Thou way. In my years working with parents, I found that the telephone was the most hated instrument children had in their homes. “Mom is on the phone. She’s always on the phone.”

Over my many years on a college campus, starting in the l980s, I saw two or three students walking around and talking to one another, most often not I-Thou encounters, but at least connecting in some way. Then cell phones came along, couples and threesomes almost disappeared in the 1990s and 2000s, and depressed singles with these little gadgets seemingly glued to their ears began to increase.

Then, in the 2010s, even human voices decreased, and singles would be focusing on the gadgets in their hands and sending text messages. Depressed and anxious singles began to increase, and too many went to counseling centers and found busy therapists who didn’t realize that the student facing him/her was real life, worried, low energy, sad, and alive, if only barely, a person sitting before them. And that poor therapist never heard of Martin Buber and the I-Thou encounter.

I hope this gives you a complete picture of the I-Thou. And I hope you will join me and . . .

Will open and nurture your heart and will not eat the menu.

Let Go of Control and Open Your Heart – Don Hanley’s blog #21

One of my favorite psychologists, Abraham Maslow, declares that after the need for our physical needs is the need for safety and security. In my experience with marriage and family therapy, I have found that for many people, this Need for security is too often seen in the attempts to control those around them – especially spouses and children. I imagine you have heard such phrases as, “By god, you are my wife now, and you’ll do what I say!” or even worse, because it is more universal, at a marriage ceremony, for the woman about to become a wife, “Love, honor, and Obey your husband.” I hope you’ve only heard this and not experienced it. And from Dad’s, “And as long as you live in this house, you’ll do what I say!”

Unfortunately, as a family counselor, I’ve heard these remarks too many times, and I have seen the sadness and emotional harm they have done. The above is most often said by men and always by men who were unhealthily controlled by their own fathers and/or mothers. Research has found that children who are respected as worthwhile and lovable persons, and it was shown both by example and instruction on how to act and/or do something, will give respect in return. If a person is in a position of power, and a parent always is, especially when the offspring are young, they will have a well-behaved and happily respectful child. I prefer to have a respectful and delightful child than an ‘obedient’ one.

I once counseled a young mother who had her three-year-old girl taken from her home because of child abuse. After a few weeks of parental education and counseling, the mother, my client, was allowed to take care of the girl for a weekend. The mother somehow found my home address. I was doing some yard work, and the mother came into the yard and sat the child down on the lawn, came over to me, and began telling me how good things were going with her and her daughter. We talked for several minutes, and the child stayed sitting in the grass as if she were a little statue. Of course, she was not being a “good” child; she was nearly emotionally catatonic. I was quite sure that this young woman had no idea how to take care of a child in a warm and life-giving way. I talked to her social worker later so she could order a continuation of parenting education. And I continued my counseling in a more basic and instructional way.

The biblical injunction, “Love others as you love yourself,” can only be followed by those who have been taught by example and experience how to love and be loved. Some call it being ‘imprinted’ to be loved and loving – not just a mere menu. A biographer of Adolf Hitler, Dr. Alice Miller, stated that Adolf’s mother had lost three previous babies and had turned over the ‘motherly chores’ to a stern nanny and that his father physically punished him almost daily. Of course, many children are treated cruelly and never become dictatorial monsters. And we can be thankful for that. Hitler and other neurotically insecure people believe that they can be secure only if they control everyone around them. And in the extreme, it might be an entire country or even the world. So let go of the need to control and let go of the need to control others and continue to . . . 

Nurture your heart (and theirs), and don’t eat the menu.