(Unedited Version)

This is rough draft written by Hamid and Lien.

The Passionate Child

 We, in the western world, are preoccupied with bringing up children that get good grades at school, will go on to have great jobs in the future, can play one or more sports, and can play one or more musical instruments.  When we talk about playing sports or musical instruments, we are not talking about playing with conviction, expertise, and passion;  we are simply talking about knowing how to play.

 What is lacking?

With all the classes we shuttle our children to, with all the attention we are giving our children, are we bringing up children with a passion for life, with a passion for humanity and everything alive?  The answer is most likely no.

People are brought to this life to contribute in a positive way.  They are not brought to this life to live a life of robotic following, walking about with hallowed eyes devoid of the light.

Is there a solution?

I believe parents have a choice.  They can consciously embark on the road to bring up better children, and in doing so, enrich their own life.

Passion for Travel

You can turn a regular travel experience into a passionate event.  First, choose a place that offers a variety of experiences, being them natural or man-made.  Starting a month before going, buy one more travel books and find sites on the Internet.  Now provide kids with the opportunity to learn.  Give them assignments, e.g. old places to visit, food, accommodation, attractions, etc. to research.  Then have regular meetings and share the finding.  If you are going to old places, find all you can about those places.  If you are going to a different culture, find all you can about it.

In this manner, when you are going to the place, you are charged up and ready to explore.  Inject a sense of exploration and excitement into your children.   Off course, this has to be started with you.  If you do have then sense of excitement and passion, that would be contagious.

Example:  Recently we took a trip to Mexico.  We had a choice of several places to go to. After much research, we settled on Cancun since it offers excellent beaches, ecoparks, and Mayan Ruins.  We then started reading Lonely Planet travel book about a month before going.  We really got our brain into the whole place, and were eager to explore.

We were not left unsatisfied.  The place offered us as many, and more, experiences than what we asked for.  Even though we all developed fever, we kept going, and turned this trip into a truly remarkable experience.

Privacy – Kids in America are trained to have their own space.  Every kid as early as new born, parents prepare the baby with his/her own room, toys, and space.  As a baby, he/she is already trained to separate.  There are too many boundaries.  There are too many yours and mine.  My model is there should be no boundary or at least limit them as much as possible.  We teach our kids to share and to give.  But at the same time, we draw this line. We encourage too much privacy.   In our family, we have the family bed.  Our daughter shares bed with us for as long as she wants.  We don’t put her in her own room.  She shares everything with us.  And she likes it that way because she feels that she is part of us and not separated from us.  I have talked to many parents who share the same ideas of family bed. Many have told me that their children grow up to be good sleepers as a result.  I notice that our daughter seemed to be very attached to us as a baby.  And we received many comments like “you should put her in her own room”, “it is not good for the baby”, or “you are teaching your baby to depend on you too much”, and so on.  But slowly, our daughter, as she grows up, becomes very confident and independent.  And we let her choose when it is that she wants to be on her own.  We believe the baby knows best what is best for her.  We often think that we need to teach to our children, but we should listen to our children and learn from them sometimes.  Too many of us try to push our babies away.  We train our babies to sleep alone, let her cry it out, and afraid to hold her because she might get spoiled.  Then later on when our children grow up, we then try to pull them back to us.  There are too many push and pull here.  My model is to let it be.  We let our daughter sleep with us in the same room and bed and share everything with us until she chooses to be more independent.  We allow her to bond with us for as long as she wishes.

Family unit – A family unit in North America is defined as a mother, a father, and the children.  How narrow minded this idea is!  American people consider their immediate family as their only family.  They don’t think beyond this point.  The parents separate themselves from the rest of the family.  Family members come to visit like a guest and not like a family member.  Again we draw the line of privacy here.

In my opinion, a family unit should include aunt, uncle, grandparents, cousins, etc.  We should include the kids with other members of the family.  There are so many benefits of grandparents, aunties, etc…  There would be too much stress for the children if they have to deal only with the parents.  We cannot trust ourselves 100% to always be good teachers to them.  We should let others teach them too.  The family should be bigger.  This way, the children will be richer and they will feel that they have a lot of support to go thru life and off courses a lot more people to learn from

Giving – How can we teach our kids to give when we ourselves never give anything away?  We indulge our kids the best clothes, best toys, and the best in everything.  And we teach our kids to hold on to these valuables.  We often save these most valuable stuffs (often defined as most expensive) somewhere in the house for as long as possible until the things have no more meanings to us.  Our kids learn from this. They keep everything.  They attach to things and they don’t know how to let go.  How can we teach them to give and share when this is the way we practice in life?  

What we do in our family is that we practice hand-me-down clothes and toys system.  That does not mean you cannot occasionally spoil your kids with something brand new.  In this hand-me-down system, our kids learn to give away their toys and clothes to their siblings, cousins, friends, or even strangers.  The children also learn to appreciate what were given to them.  They learn to give and receive. They also develop an important belief that giving is a good thing.  And they learn to receive without discrimination. 

To practice this concept further, we have asked all the guests who were invited to our daughter’s Birthday to bring old clothes and toys.  And the agenda does not include opening presents in front of the guests.  Our children need not to know who brings them better toys.  Our daughter is just very happy to have all these goodies given to her; and she is readily giving them away again.

We should encourage our children to give all the time.  By this, I don’t mean just give away the unwanted things but the valuables as well.  We should challenge our kids and ourselves to give away the best things we have sometimes.  This might be hard for some people, but it will teach us to detach ourselves from the material things and focus on something more valuable like the love, the satisfaction and the fulfillment of giving, and the joy of life without a price tag

Nowadays, people are too much involved with brand names. Kids are trained to associate good clothes are clothes with words like “Nike” or “Adidas” on them.  This is a vicious competition among kids and adults for that matter.  This creates false judgment, discrimination, and false labeling on people.  We have to teach our children to value themselves for who they really are and not for what they wear or what they possess.  We also teach them to respect others in the same manners. 

In North America, people are too much into comfort zones.  We look for the familiar.  Everything has to be at a certain standard.