Robert Keith Wallace - Dharma Parenting: Understand Your Childs Brilliant Brain for Greater Happiness, Health, Success, and Fulfillment

D HARMA PARENTING IS A UNIQUE approach to raising happy and successful children. It starts with the understanding that kids are people with their own strengths and weakness, their own gifts and preferences. Dharma Parenting provides you with simple tools to help your children discover who they areand what they can become.

Dharma is a concept found in Eastern traditions. The word dharma comes from the Sanskrit verb dhri, which means to uphold or support. Our dharma is our path in lifethe lifestyle that supports our personal growth, happiness, success, and fulfillment. Dharma is different at different ages, and for different children. One child learns quickly and forgets quickly, while another learns slowly and forgets slowly. One may be content to work alone for long periods of time; another wants to be surrounded by friends. If we are lucky, we find our dharma early in life.

For example, we know a brilliant second-year college student who wants to teach high school math. He feels that he was born to be a teacherhis parents were both teachers, and he has been tutoring classmates since third grade. He tells us theres nothing as satisfying as his friends Aha! when they finally get what hes trying to teach them. Its clear that teaching is his dharma. Two of his college professors, however, were shocked when he revealed his career goal. One responded by telling him to get a PhD: You could do brilliant theoretical work! And his computer science teacher said, You could become a world-class programmer and be a millionaire before youre twenty-five! Both of these professors were projecting their own talents and desires onto the student, instead of encouraging his special aptitudes and interest. Rather than help him find his own path, they wanted him to travel down theirs. The tools of Dharma Parenting allow us to recognize and nurture our childrens unique path in life: what theyre good at, what they enjoy, what helps them grow. In addition, these tools help us understand each of the stages of brain development, from birth to adulthood, so our parenting takes into account our childrens developmental levelnot demanding things that they cannot yet accomplish, but always gently encouraging them to use more of their potential.

Dharma Parenting tools help us find our own dharma as a parent. Did you ever wish that babies came with manuals? Its so much easier to use a new gadget when theres an instruction manual! Parenting is tremendously complex and often hopelessly confusing. Understanding the principles of brain/body types and the stages of brain development will empower you to apply Dharma Parenting tools in a variety of changing situations. In other words, you will be able to begin to fulfill your dharma as a parent.

Dharma Parenting incorporates six parenting tools that apply to children of all age groups. Theyre easy to remember using the word dharma as an acronym:

D iscover your childs, and your own, brain/body type

H eal yourself

A ttention and a ppreciation

R outines to improve family dynamics

M anage m eltdowns and cultivate better behavior

A nticipate and a dapt

Lets see how these tools might be applied in a specific situation.

Six-year-old Ryan storms into the kitchen, his blue eyes welling with tears, cheeks flaming red, as he flings his game box onto the floor, cracking its screen.

This game is stupid. I hate it! the boy screams, and runs out of the room, leaving his mother shaken. What can I do? she wonders. How do I handle his rage?

Ryan is a bright, energetic child who can be perfectly agreeable and normal for days, until some small thing throws him into a violent tantrum. Lately, both of Ryans parents have noticed his growing tendency to overreact, almost to overheatmentally, physically, and emotionallyand they are increasingly concerned. Whats causing this alarming behavior? What is the cure? Is it time to find a child psychologist? Is it just a case of boys will be boys? Does he need medication?

Your brain/body type includes (1) your inherited tendencies and preferences that have been hardwired from birth, also known as our body type, (2) the state of balance or imbalance of your body type, and (3) your changing brain connections, which are constantly being shaped by ongoing experiences as well the stage of your brain development. Ryan appears to be a particular brain/body type that is susceptible to anger. Also, Ryan is six years old. His brain is wired to be a sensory-motor machine that sees the world very concretely. If a video machine doesnt work, it should be thrown out. So when his game box stopped working, he became upset and threw it away because of the