Abraham on Parenting - Abraham Quote

Thanks to Pat from the Powerful Intentions Abraham forum for posting this!

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Q: An issue that [has] come up for me a number of times is regarding parenting.

Abe: We don’t recommend it. (Laughter.) We don’t recommend being a parent or having one. (More laughter.)

Q: It’s good advice. I have a six-year-old right now who… I guess where I struggle, a lot of the thing that you teach about parenting are letting people make their own decisions or, you know, now moving into this controlling mode. There are certain positions I am placed in where I am the decision maker — for example, I choose what school he goes to go, I choose what toys he can have. I struggle with that. Could you talk that a little bit, when the child is younger….

Abe: We will come back and talk about the specifics of that if you want, but we want to talk about something bigger first, and that is that as a parent, as you are approaching your child from the standpoint that it’s a dangerous world that you are protecting him from, that’s one vibrational mindset that will produce a whole set of results. And there’s another vibrational mindset that says ‘this is a safe universe and my child has guidance, and well-being is the basis of his experience.’ So many parents approach their children as if the world is very dangerous and as if they are trying to protect them from all of the things that go wrong, which automatically disconnects you from your Source, from your reason, from your clarity, from your intuition, and the little one knows that it’s happening all along. Because in his early life experience, he is still trusting in well-being. That is the greatest discord that takes place between parents and children: if the child feels safe and the parent doesn’t think the child *is* safe.

A parent would say, “Yes, Abraham, but bad things happen to these children.” And we say not in an environment where their sense of well-being is fostered. In other words, parents work so hard at distorting the sense of well-being of their children, and then they complain about things going wrong and then use that evidence as the reason that they’re wanting to protect them to begin with. What a backwards spiral that is, you see.

So the thing that we would most work on from the perspective of parent is we would remind ourselves what a great universe this is and how well things are going and how magnificently orchestrated it is and what an amazing little body that is and how miraculous it seems that all the components of that body are working so amazingly well. We would watch for evidence of their intuitiveness and of their adaptation to their environment. And we would praise them at every opportunity and note how well they are doing, and we would anticipate them to be very different, we would not try to pound them into any regular roles. We would accept him as the individual that he is and take great delight in everything that he’s doing that is even the slightest bit different in nature.

We would just be beating the drum of the magnificence of this being. We would fast-forward in our mind and we would pretend that our son turned out to be the most successful, happy anything that ever lived upon the planet, and we would be crowing… about the role that we played in all that, and we would approach every day of their life from that fast-forward vantage point. In other words, we would pretend that they were ultimately successful, which from our vantage point means that they were ultimately happy and always find satisfying things that made them feel an in-this-moment love of life. And we would spend as little time correcting them and corralling them and trying to inhibit them and contain them as possible. We would just be bolstering their individuality and looking for evidence of it and reflecting it back to them over and over again. And the words that would… come out of our mouth that our little one would hear most often [would be], “You are amazing. You are so bright. You have such wonderful guidance. I always know that you will make the right decision. Oh, that was a good choice, Oh, I like what you’ve done here. Ooh — really, really good job. Oh, I love that. Oh, it’s very nice to be with you. Well, aren’t you the smart one. Well, aren’t you the fun one. Well, aren’t you the clever one. Well, aren’t you the beautiful one.”

In other words, we would just bombard them, we would treat them exactly as their Inner Being treats them, in real live words.

His Inner Being would say to him, “I adore you. You are perfect. You are magnificent. Wasn’t that fun? Let’s do that again. It’s all right.” In other words, his Inner Being is rooting, rooting, rooting for all of those things [about which] parents are trying to say, “No, no, don’t do that!” That’s that duality that we were talking about earlier, isn’t it? In other words, Inner Being knowing your perfection and mother not being quite so sure. Inner Being knowing how clever you are and mother not being quite so sure. Yes.

Q: Can we chew on the specifics a little bit?

Abe: If we must.

(Laughter.)

Q: I must. ‘Cause I go back and forth on this issue.

Abe: Well, don’t do that.

Q: Well, he was in kindergarten and he was miserable….

Abe: Because it is containing.

Q: I know that.

Abe: It is boring. It is so boring! How would you like to go someplace where they don’t let you do any of the things that you really want to do?

Q: Well, I began to recognize that the kindergarten that he was in was…

Abe: Boring!

Q: …not a good fit.

Abe: Boring! Boring! Boring! Like jail. With crayons.

(Laughter.)

Q: Okay, so I pulled him out. I have a six-year-old around all day long now. And it conflicts with what I want, too. I mean, I want to explore….

Abe: We understand. We understand. It’s why you put all of your criminals in jail. In other words, you want them out of your hair.

Q: Well, what I would like for him is to be in an environment where he is inspired to pursue his interests. And when I pulled him out of his school, I really felt terrific about it. I felt like I was in touch with my intuition and — but that’s where I get stuck. How much is it just ‘oh, I’m just satisfying my desire, I hate to see him cry in school, I hate to see him struggle, so I’m just making myself feel better by pulling him out’?

Abe: That might be, and it’s all right if that is, but…we really think that you were doing your best to look at his best interest in doing all of that. But here is the thing that we most want you to hear:

So he was in an environment that was not a good match for him, and the intensity of his response let you know that. And we think it’s a wonderful thing. Don’t you think it’s great…

Q: Yeah, I do.

Abe: …that his emotions were telling you, that [they] let you know that this was not a good match for him? And we love it that he erupted in that way. We would much rather that he let you know through his emotional response that it wasn’t a good match than that he just bucked up and endured, and later became an alcoholic over it. (Laughter.) We’re not kidding. There are so many people that contain themselves in so many ways and then their behavior is affected in some other way.

But the experience for you is that out of this is born a new desire that you did not have access to before. You now know that you want him to have some place to go, some place [where] he’s stimulated, someplace that is a good match for him. Someplace where there are other high-energy children who like to do lots of different things, someplace where they’re allowed more flexibility and more freedom. And we promise that those places exist — they’re all over the place. And now that desire’s been activated within you, you have access to it, where you did not have access to it before.

But you will not be able to reach this new desire if you keep beating the drum of how you did not like that school or if you keep beating the drum of now he’s in your hair or… now you don’t have the freedom that you are wanting. In other words, you have to be careful not to keep beating those drums because you don’t have to explain anything to anybody. You don’t have to justify your desire for him to be in school or your desire for him to have a fun place to be. That desire is natural, and it’s nice that it’s been born within you. And the Universe has heard it, and the Universe is not asking for any justification from you, just vibrational alignment.

So how might you vibrationally align with that idea? By pretending that it’s already happened. By waking up in the morning and pretending that it’s already the day, even though it may not be, that this is the day he gets to go to the place that he really wants to go. By imagining that you’re waking up, and he’s in there before you even get your eyes open, saying, “Can we go? Can we go? Can we go?” That he’s coming home with all kinds of things that he’s created or thought about, or new friends that he’s found, that he is just full of all of this exuberance for life as he’s now found someone who understands him and plays with him and appreciates the power of his genius as you are coming to do.

We think that you can have anything that you want. You can find something that will be satisfying for you at the same time, but you couldn’t have it before you had an experience that made you identify that you want it. And now you know that you want it, all you have to do is think thoughts that match it and it will be yours.

And fast — it is our expectation.

– Abe — Seattle, WA, 6/28/03