Recently, I enjoyed a rich experience of gathering with parents in my school community to reflect together on the role of temperament in our parenting. It was a lovely opportunity to accept pieces of who we are and how we are and to use an awareness of that to feel empowered to choose what is most suitable for ourselves and our children.
This empowerment seems to flow out of a clearer sense of self-determination. Self-determination differentiates between autonomous regulation and controlled regulation. Making decisions represents one instance of self-regulation and the perennial dance between autonomous choice and controlled choice.
It is our own thoughts that guide our daily lives. What we think is what we do. For me, this entails pursuing enlightened self-interest en lieu of myopic self-interest. There is a strong incentive value in our parenting relationship that strongly motivates our willingness to make sacrifices. What others think – and the unavoidable advice they will offer – will not and should not matter. It is with this clarity that we gain perspective about and some distance from external pressures and expectations. It is also with this clarity that we may finally be able to slough off feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and generally “not measuring up.”
As an administrator who makes significant decisions a lot, I see how schools and communities can fall into asking for sacrifices from teachers and staff without recognizing that the strength of relationship is not such that it will motivate sacrifice, even if it is in honor of the greater good. It would seem that in parenting or in community understanding, temperament and the demands of ego in choice is meaningful. It informs how we nurture constructive growth and how we feed hope, truth and compassion.
The Parable of the Two Wolves
An old Cherokee chief was teaching his grandson about life...
"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.
"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.
"One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt, and ego.
"The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.
"This same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather,
"Which wolf will win?"
The old chief simply replied,
"The one you feed."
