The Kid Code

Preface “If you want to be happy, you have to go where happiness is.” -Vernon Howard This book, The Kid Code, is a wellbeing manual for parents, grandparents, coaches, educators, and, for all human beings who know a child. It’s also for anyone who would like to feel joy and at ease in any situation. It came about because I fell into the lap of many Masters who live/d without stress. That seems impossible, and yet, once I saw it was real for them, I began to wonder what the difference was between them and me. I wanted to know if it was possible for the rest of us to live that way: stress-free and genuinely happy. And, honestly, I didn’t know where true, long-term happiness came from. While I didn’t believe living without stress could be achieved, over time, and after devouring the Masters’ teachings like a starving child, I began to understand that I had everything backwards because of my misunderstandings about the cause of, and the cure for, stress. What I learned from the Masters is that once we understand the true cause of stress, we can set ourselves free from it. When that happens, a natural and peacful way to exist and parent becomes possible. Ellen Galinsky of the Families and Work Institute asked 1,000 kids, “If you had one wish about your parents, what would it be?” The kids said they wished their parents were less tired and stressed. That’s understandable, we don’t like to be around stressed-out people either. This book is about making stress disappear, and often times, taking tired along with it! It’s about going from chaos to calmness in 30 seconds – really. Being upset takes a lot of energy out of us. The Masters I’ve studied and refer to often in this book are: Eckhart Tolle, Guy Finley, Byron Katie, Sadhguru, Mooji, Adyashanti, and others, including the work in A Course In Miracles, Dr. Wayne Dyer, and many more. What I really love about these people is that they love everything and everyone with such genuine affection that it leaves one speechless, and genuinely questioning what life is all about. They don’t have conditions, expectations or demands on anyone or anything as a way to make themselves feel good. They don’t want anything from anyone. It’s natural for them to be joyful without a reason. It’s natural for them to work towards the same state they live in for all human beings. It’s natural for us, too, but we need some pointers to get back to our natural stress-free state of joy. As parents, and, as human beings, we need answers. How can we live like they do? Who better to learn from than those who live without stress; those who live with a natural kind of happiness? Kids and Masters. Children Teach us What They Want us to Teach Them. Children are not things to be molded, but are people to be unfolded. -Jess Lair They may be four feet shorter than us, but kids are ten times wiser. They belly laugh, don’t hold grudges, make friends easily, and don’t register skin color, status, or body size. They are innocent, spontaneous, curious, and genuine. They don’t know how to criticize and are naturally affectionate. They want us to teach them that is who they really are. That’s who we are, too. They want us to teach them that they can draw on that part of themselves no matter what’s going on in their lives. Kids are not governed by ‘things’; they don’t care how important we are or what position we hold in our family, career, community, or country. They have never made a comment on the make of a car, the size of a house, or the clothes someone is wearing. It’s okay to have a nice house and a car with a personal license plate, a career, and anything else that’s in our lives; kids would like us to know that those things are not what really matter in life. We know that but are easily drawn into making unimportant things into important things. When we do that, we cause ourselves a lot of stress. As taught by Guy Finley, a renowned spiritual teacher, what we own (the car, the house, etc.) begins to own us. We get ourselves a job: we have to make payments, maintain them, and worse, those things gain importance that they don’t have. We drift away from the natural state we see in children and fall into the trap of putting value and meaning on ‘things’ or ‘ideas’, like my child ‘should do well’ without knowing that ‘do well’ really means feeling at ease in their own skin, not winning a race, looking good, or getting 100% on a test. Kids can play for hours with almost nothing (a stick, some rocks, or a cardboard box) and be in their glory; that’s because the glory is inside of them already. Their inner joy creates their experience of life. They project their inner state of joy out onto anything that’s in front of them. If that is true, then working on the inner state is the cure for outer problems (problems we experience with others, with situations, and with events). All of that is what kids want us to teach them. 30 Second Parenting Strategy Blessing Mistakes All people who make mistakes, big or small, deserve love. Karma takes care of their consequences. Your kindness takes care of yours. Learning how to give yourself and others Grace, not grief when a mistake is made is for everyone’s wellbeing. This strategy can reduce the stress in a household by 90% on the first day of using it! This stress-reducing, connection-creating strategy will change how you feel inside of yourself, how you feel towards others, and how others feel towards you. It puts the focus on the human being, not their mistake and it points us back to our True Nature. Use this with your kids, partners, friends, family, co-workers; use it with anyone and everyone – even with yourself! It’s natural to support someone when a mistake is made. How we know this to be true, is to see how we feel inside of ourselves when we offer true support. Whatever feels natural is natural. It doesn’t feel natural to belittle, shame, or devalue someone when they make a mistake. How we know this to be true is that if we check inside ourselves while behaving in those ways, we don’t feel natural. How To: 1. Someone else makes a mistake. The mistake is already made, so now you can decide how you want to be and feel and act towards the person who made the mistake. Do you want to give them grief or give them Grace (be kind)? - If you give them grief, notice how awful you feel while you do it and how awful you feel long after you’ve done it (the misery keeps coming back – we talk to ourselves about it). - If you give them Grace, notice how good you feel while you do it (it’s a compassionate, non-judgmental feeling). It doesn't hurt to remember that we all still make many mistakes every day. That will help us want to give others Grace. You say to them and feel the truth of the statement: "You matter more than the mistake." Use whatever language you feel conveys that the mistake doesn’t de-value the person making it. Examples of what to say are: - “Everyone makes mistakes.” - “Some of my mistakes have helped me.” - “Mistakes are not meant to make us feel bad.” - “When I make a mistake, I Bless myself because it’s kind to do that.” - “This mistake doesn’t matter, you do.” - “Making mistakes is inevitable.” - “I feel good when I Bless my mistake and then make it right.” - “Some mistakes are meant to be a lesson to help us along the way.” - “Sometimes I get it wrong many times before I get it right.” 2. Part two of Blessing Mistakes: Make It Right, Learn From It, Let It Go. Make it right: That means apologize, replace something, clean up something, or whatever will make it right. Why? - Making it right feels good inside of us. Denying or justifying it makes us upset – pay attention to how you feel inside when you make it right and when you deny or justify it.