Our Greatest Teachers Are the “short” Ones | VictorSchueller.com

“While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.” ~Angela Schwindt

The other day I was taking a jog with my wife.  The jog quickly turned into a walk because of the heat and humidity, and quite frankly, because I had run out of gas.  (If you are a runner, maybe you can relate, when you just don’t have any more fuel left in the tank)  I’m glad we had the opportunity to make a walk out of our outing, because we had the time to spend alone to just talk.  It just so happened that our older daughter’s birthday was this past weekend, and we were marveling at the fact that she was already seven years old.  Our discussion turned to talking about how remarkable children are, and how their personalities, in some ways, mirror their parents’, but then in other ways, how they are their own unique personalities.

As we had talked about our daughters, I got on the topic of “why” we are here, on this earth.  I was sharing something that I had read recently, how an author suggested that children don’t “belong” to us as parents.  The author had suggested that, instead, children enter this world “through” us, but they have their own independent place in this world, and while we parents are “vehicles” for their entry, they are their own unique spiritual beings, ready to make a difference in the world.  I had never thought of it this way, but it really helps start to sort out why some children come out of their mothers almost like “adults in a box;” they seem to have a sense of maturity and a sort of self-confidence that is so intuitive and unlearned.  Our older daughter, Brianna, is one of those people.  She knows what she wants, and she has such supreme self confidence.

Our younger daughter, Ava, wears her heart on her sleeve.  She definitely lets you know how she feels.  She is extremely bright, just like her sister, and she is so emotionally in tune with others.  She is a supreme empathic being, who really sorts out the feelings of others and draws upon that to formulate how she interacts with those around her.  This is a remarkable feat for someone under the age of four, and no doubt it’s a talent, but how can you teach empathy and compassion and understanding of other people’s feelings to someone that young?  You really can’t!

As our conversation about our girls continued, we talked about how we as parents are important in the development of our children, because we are responsible for teaching them life’s lessons.  I wrote two posts about the lessons I hope to teach my daughters, and here are the links, in case you are interested in reading them — “Life Lessons I Hope to Teach My Daughters – Part 1” and “Life Lessons I Hope to Teach My Daughters – Part 2”

While we need to teach our children life lessons, we also need to take the time to realize that lessons are to be learned from these little spiritual beings as well.   My wife was saying that she can stand to learn from our older daughter’s supreme self-confidence and assertive skills, and I was saying that I can stand to learn a bit of patience and understanding from our younger daughter, as she takes time to sort out her feelings and as she responds empathically to others.

These are just two life lessons that we are trying to learn from our children, and it’s important that we get all we can from them before they get too old.  Children provide a wonderful example of how we can get back in tune with our true, great selves, free of ego and prejudice and judgment.  If you watch and listen to children, you can see how pure they are.  They don’t have an ego; they ask lots (and lots and lots) of questions (sometimes so many I get frustrated); they have a sense of wonderment in regard to their environment and animals and the laws of nature; they always want to know more, and know there is more to learn.

If we can just learn some of these lessons from these wonderful teachers, we will go a long way in getting back in touch with our inner child — our true spirit, who was meant to do great things, before we learned from adults how to be critical, judgmental, concerned about our ego, and thought we knew it all, filled with understandings of limitations and impossibilities.  It takes time to “unlearn” all that we have “learned” from the adults who supposedly “knew” how the world works.  While parents and adults are valuable in teaching children important social and interpersonal lessons, we adults need to realize that we are on this earth to learn from the little ones that grace us from time to time and have the potential to change us into something greater than we already are.  We need reminders from these “short” teachers; reminders of the greatness we possessed as younger beings — greatness we still have within us.

If you have a “short” teacher in your life, take some time to ask yourself what you can learn from them, spiritually pure and full of limitless potential.  Children are truly remarkable beings, and it’s our job as adults to continue to remind them of the greatness they possess, without tainting their pure waters with limited thinking, judgmentalism, and ego-centrism.   We can learn much from these “short” teachers, as they can reacquaint us with the great spirit that resides within us!

I wrote a post about a year ago on some lessons I have learned from my older daughter, Brianna.  It was on my old “Blogger” site, so I copied it over to this blog.  If you’re interested in reading it, here’s the link: “A Winning Personality”