History Lessons With Context, For Kids

Hold up your hand, like 5.  Your thumb is your kids, pointer is you, middle is your parents, ring is your grandparents, pinky is your great-grandparents.  About 100 years, 5 generations.  This was how I began to teach my daughters about, well, life: time, family, history, culture, religion, economics, people.  I want to share this idea because it has been extremely effective in getting children to understand things on a broader and deeper level.

Each finger has its own place in history.  When I tell the girls stories about their grandmother, it leads to stories about what was going on in the world when Grammy was little, and MeMe was my age...  and their culture and religion, and even things like gender roles and social expectations of that time.  The idea is to point out that most things in life are not taught intentionally, but rather incidentally.    Customs and traditions aside, basic social skills are learned by observing adults at home when we're little.  Is your temper like your dad's temper?  Do you smoke?  These are things that we learn at home when we're little.  It's subconscious.  Children learn what they live.  By pointing this out, I am able to explain to my kids why people are the way they are, based on how and where and when they were raised and schooled.

Some people are brought up a certain way, and they stay that way.  They stay loyal to whatever mindset they were raised around, and then raise the next generation the same way.

Hypothetically, if you were raised to be honest and responsible and fair, to rise above human emotions and use fact and logic and critical thinking to solve problems, and to serve the greater good in the name of peace and world unity, then awesome!  You should totally stay loyal to that mindset and raise your kids to be that way too!  Eradicate greed and envy!

envy= self hatred

greed= compensation of self hatred

uh-oh, spin-off rant**

If you hate yourself, there's a reason.  Is it a real reason?  I mean, is it real or only feels real?  It is worth facing the truth about your self esteem, because low self-esteem is the opposite of inner peace.  How many times have you lacked the confidence or the motivation to do what you know is right?  Have you displayed false confidence instead?  Repeated what you heard instead of doing your own research?  Or simply act apathetic?

Emotions hold us back, and we let them.  They are not even true, not factual, not "real", but unfortunately we have been taught to rely on them.  You've heard "go with your gut" and "follow your heart" but have you heard "recognize your feeling but don't throw a fit over it, try to figure out why you feel that way and then fix the fucking problem"??

MADE SIMPLE:

Feelings Lie and Truth Hurts

Stop Avoiding Pain, The Only Way Out Is Through

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