Intuition and Parenting

Intuition. 

A word that is very powerful and very dear to me. I first heard about it's importance in one of the math lectures of Late Sri. Koteswara Rao Garu. He was a genius in Maths. Where does the genius come from? For some it comes by practice. But, for some it is just the intuition that takes the shape of actions. He used this term while solving mathematical problems. To his own question 'how do you guess that this should be the approach?' he would answer 'There is something called intuition and it should kick in at the right time.' I didn't ponder over it much, then. 


Gradually, as days passed by and as I learnt more about life and its experiences, I had been awestruck with the power of intuition that takes effect in most of my behaviour. I usually do not realise it's importance right when it took effect. But, at the end of day, when I ponder over my experiences and decisions at various instances of my life, I could not thank my conscience enough for the intuitive power within. 





So, what is intuition? Does it kick in at an emotional level, physical level or intellectual level? 


Some lines by famous people on intuition:


"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." - Albert Einstein


The only real valuable thing is intuition. - Albert Einstein


I believe in intuitions and inspirations...I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am. - Albert Einstein


Intuition is seeing with the soul. - Dean Koontz


Often you have to rely on intuition. – Bill Gates


All great men are gifted with intuition. They know without reasoning or analysis, what they need to know. - Alexis Carrel


Don't try to comprehend with your mind. Your minds are very limited. Use your intuition. - Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time


An example of intuition in math...


S. Ramanujan was an Indian mathematician who became famous for his intuition for numbers. When the English mathematician G. H. Hardy came to visit him in the hospital one day, Hardy remarked that the number of his taxi was 1729, a rather dull number. To which Ramanujan replied, "No, Hardy! No, Hardy! It is a very interesting number. It is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways."


Some of us might be intuitive at work, say, designing algorithms comes very intuitively for some, doing the math is another's intuitive ability. Some may be quite intuitive in dealing with people, while, some in analytical skills. 


Intuition is something that comes from within us, the subconscious entity, the soul. You don't analyse the scenario to reach it. You don't ponder over the pros and cons to know about it. Your inner self knows it and it sends the signal for your brain to receive. How well you receive depends on how able you can listen to your intuition which in turn depends upon how close you are to your inner self or your subconscious or your soul. 


Ideally, realising your intuitive power in every aspect of one's life is important. Because, our subconscious is what we really are. Leave about how beautiful we are on the physical plane, all that matters is, how beautiful you are at your subconscious level or how beautiful your soul is. Once you are truly connected to your inner self, you will receive answers to all your questions in life. 


So, what is all this in the context of parenting? 


Intuition plays a major role in parenting. Because, all that is needed in parenting is love - unconditional love. The love that does not have to think over what just happened on the physical plane(whatever mess the child has done) before expressing it self towards the child. Love that knows no favours, no rewards, no returns. Love that can be expressed not only when the child achieves laurels in school but also when the child is shouting at the top of his voice. Love that could be shown not only when the child is giggling, playing, running, hugging but also when the tired child, who is unable to contain his immense tiredness within, is rolling on the floor crying . Love that can be shown not only when the child has just started playing in park but also when the child is not willing to leave for home from park. And, many more instances. 


So, how does one achieve to this stage of showing unconditional love in the most tiring phase of a day. It is time to go to school, your child doesn't move an inch to freshen up, how do you show the unconditional love? You made many arrangements for your child to perform an act on stage and all that he does is just go and stand still/cry on the stage. How do you show your unconditional love?
What is all this about unconditional love? How does one practice to have unconditional love? (Is this question even right?) How can the response of one person differ from the other to the same stressful situation? Does one actually get the expression of unconditional love? NO!



Unconditional love is something that comes from within. It comes from your subconscious level. It does not matter how stressful situation you are in or how much mess your child has created in front of you. Unconditional love does not judge what the child has done. Unconditional love just shows love towards the subject and this particular response comes from our subconscious. You cannot practice the expression of unconditional love. It shoots itself from within.


How many times have to decided not to yell at your child, still end up yelling and feel bad about it later? Is it because of lack of practice? No, it is because you are not listening to your inner self. In any kind of situation, your inner self is always telling you what should truly be done. For example, for a child who is yelling and crying, your inner self is always telling you to pick her up and show some warmth. But, rarely people listen to their inner self, instead, end up yelling at the child to just shut her mouth and stop crying be it whatever reason it was for. 





So, who is doing what? A child who lacks self-control is crying which is absolutely fine. Young children lack self-control and tend to take to extreme behaviors to express their joy and anger. It is perfectly OK for the child to behave so. Now, about the adult. The adult, who is supposed to listen to her inner voice, understand what is ought to be done and do it the right way, does not even make an attempt to learn what went wrong with the child before asking the child to just STOP crying immediately. 


Can each of you think of the number of times you had thought of not yelling, controlled yourself for 10 times but ended up yelling at the 11th time? What is it that's going wrong? Why isn't there harmony between souls? What are you missing?


With a strong intuition, and, by intuition I mean, closer connect to your soul, you listen to what your soul says, you respond just as your subconscious directs you to and in the process, understand and connect to your child. Every single time you do this, you make a lasting connection with your child. The sooner you understand the concept, the earlier you make the connection with your child.
So, what really went wrong when you ended up yelling instead of staying calm is not the lack of practice or inability to follow the parenting tips or tricks but lack of your attempt to know your own self. Know who you really are. Know who your child truly is. Learn about your subconscious levels. Draw yourself closer to your soul. Listen to your intuition. Learn about why physical beings exist. Learn about life. Learn about the BIG things that life has to offer and the stress you might be feeling at any moment can never be significant to you. 


Again, this does not mean that you do not have to give importance to your child's cry over the simplest thing. Instead, when you are connected to yourself and your child, you, very correctly know, how you have to respond in any situation. There may be hundreds of TO-DOs and NOT-TO-DOs lists about parenting. You may be overwhelmed with the hundreds of resources and various styles of parenting that exist. But, what you have to follow is that which works for you and your child. And you will understand what it is only when you truly connect to your soul. Of the many ways that exist, meditation is one way to connect to the inner self. That is when you start listening to your subconscious and that is when your intuition kicks in, in every instance of your life. You start to realise the power of intuition and fall in love with it. 

Let's embrace the power of intuitive parenting. What it means is that you listen with your heart. It means that you keep open your senses to listen to what your child is trying to convey with his behaviour and letting your response come from within, may not be exactly the same as you had read in xyz parenting guide last week. You listen to your child before responding, by first, listening to your inner self. 


Someone rightly said, 'Intuition is the highest form of intelligence' and true it is. 

May we be more intuitive in our parenting journey and rear children who grow up to be intuitive adults. 

Sandwich, anyone?

DD1 finds interest in doing simple tasks that I do evey day. Like, filling water bottles, washing rice/dal for cooking, mixing milk with milk powder and many such.

One of them, is making sandwiches. She arranges the bread and stuffing when I make sandwiches. Since the maker turns hot while operating she misses the opportunity to take out the sandwich off the tray.

One day, she set off to make pretend sandwich.

She keeps checking if the bread is toasted enough before I can taste it.

Counting and fractions

The other day, DD1 and her cousin were beaming with energy, running around and trying to pick various things that they eyed upon. One such thing was this shampoo sachets roll. I gave an idea of counting the sachets, folding the roll to half, count again and repeat.

Then, bunch of ideas followed, all of them being directed by the two young kids.
One was, fold the two sachets at both ends, count, repeat. And this is what is called subtraction in formal school or reverse step counting.

There are many ways of learning. It can happen even using the very simple items that we see everyday.