Creating Insecure Thinking in Ourselves & Children
When our children are young, if we yell at them and put them down, or nag at them and criticize them, and tell them that they are not OK- we are inadvertently teaching them to have insecure thinking about themselves.
They then take these thoughts on and become those thoughts.
When schools tell kids they won’t fit in, or they won’t do well, or they will have trouble learning, or that they are troublemakers, if those young people believe it, they will then think it themselves. They will think that is who they are. This keeps them looking outside of themselves for the answer for who they are.
This leads to an insecure set of beliefs. If parents are always telling a kid that he/she is stupid, and then something happens to fit into those beliefs, like getting an “F” on a test, then they begin to think, “They must be right, I AM stupid!”
Those beliefs get reinforced. Once those beliefs are entrenched and become a pattern, then even when something happens that contradicts it, such as getting an “A”, the kid then thinks, “Oh that was just a fluke”. And they write it off.
So once those beliefs are locked in, no matter what comes along, it confirms and validates them. No matter what comes along, those kids will still think they are stupid and act as if they really are.
The world then reacts to them accordingly which, in turn, reinforces it. A viscious downward cycle of insecure thinking develops. This is what moves children and other people away from recognizing their natural state.
Where Did We As Parents Get This Insecure Thinking?
As parents, we have also picked up such beliefs. Where did we get them? From our parents! Then without being aware of it we pass them along to our children.
You’re probably not passing it along in the exact way, but in some way you may be. It then gets programmed into our children’s brains as it was inadvertently programmed into ours.
Our children pick up “as if worlds” from us. This means that we begin to go through life “as if” certain things about life are most important.
If our parents inadvertently taught us by their actions that we should go through life “as if” money is important, we begin to see alot of things in life in terms of money.
If your parents were exceptionally generous and money never seemed to be an issue to them, then you may have a different association to money. But if you saw your parents struggle for money, bargain shopping, and never had enough money, then your association to money is very lack oriented.
Some people are very relaxed about money, or they might see nothing but abundance and not worry about it.
Some people go through life as if power and prestige are the all important things in life.
Innocently, we pick these things up from our parents. They become our own. We own them now.
Some parents will imply that we should go through life as if not backing down from anyone is important. That child will likely get in a lot of fights.
Some parents will say that life is all about trusting people. That sounds good- until that child ends up trusting everyone to the point of being taken advantage of.
For some, life is all about hard work. This sounds great too until some become workaholics.
This is how our children’s programmed, insecure thinking, and habitual thinking develops. Out of this habitual, program-med thinking they see the world, and out of the way they see the world, they think, feel, and act.
Take a look first at your own insecure thinking. What thoughts have you picked up from your parents? What have you passed on to your own children?
