Respect for the child’s sovereignty comes from acknowledgement of their separateness from us. Their ability to develop into an independent person depends on our understanding that they have their own inner world. 

 

In episode 046, we talked about three essential pillars to respect and the first one was about seeing your child as an Individual. And that means seeing them as complete, whole human being with their own thoughts, needs, and feelings… 

 

In today’s conversation, we make a special emphasis on the Separateness Factor of being an Individual.

 

As soon as your child is able to interact with the world intentionally, they begin to acquire their own experience, separate and private from ours. They have an inner world of their own. What that means is that there is a lot we do not know about our children.

And we don’t have to.

 

Not knowing is not the problem, it is our assumptions that we do know — that’s a problem. We make lots of assumptions about our children. Even when they tell us what they think and feel, sometimes we are inclined to tell them we know better. That’s counterproductive to their development. When we assume we know, we begin to impose ourselves… When we impose, we overstep the child’s boundaries. The child’s sovereignty is so core to their being, that such invasion of their boundaries will be met with resistance. 

 

We already talked about how important boundaries are to the child’s sense of Self. The antidote to broken boundaries is to acknowledge the child’s Sovereignty. This means to understand that the child has a consciousness of their own. And our work as parents is to nurture it into being of a complete and independent Self.

 

What is the child’s Sovereignty precisely and how do we nurture it?

Tune in to today’s episode to hear more.

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