Well, it’s the end of another COVID-filled year with no end in sight. Whether it’s the “new norm” or not, our choices are to sink or swim amongst it. I do not presume to imagine how awful this has been for many of you who have lost loved ones. And my heart goes out to all of you struggling to parent and to keep your family functioning amidst workplace and financial problems, remote school, and the personal well-being of all your family drifting down the tubes. The loss of normal school life, friends, activities, social life, just regular connection shows us how important all that is to our personal happiness. The weirdness of wearing masks everywhere, kids trying to learn from screens when you work hard to keep them off, and so much depression and growing mental health issues. Ugh. It’s hard to look at the bright side.
Strange as it may seem, Stanley Kubrick once said, “However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”
And my favorite of all lyrics is from Leonard Cohen, “There’s a crack in everything. That’s where the light gets in.”
As we embark on another year wondering when — and even if — life will ever get back to normal again, I am pulling back from some of my work. I am not at all retiring as rumor has it. But I will no longer be teaching at The River Center or writing this column. I will however be continuing my parent and parenting partners counseling work, doing my podcast Tell Me About Your Kids, and sending out my twice-monthly newsletters with my parenting articles. So still busy, just a tad less so.
So as I sign off from the Ledger-Transcript and look for my light in these dark times, I want to first tell you all how grateful I am: to the Ledger-Transcript for publishing my words for about 30 years, to the Toadstool and the library for always keeping my books on hand, and for the internet allowing me to live in beautiful, wonderful Peterborough these past 35 years yet reach parents all over the world.
Hopefully I have made a dent in our old, dysfunctional parenting paradigm of reward and punishment which is based on using fear to motivate and replaced it with a connected and balanced relationship paradigm where there is mutual trust and respect. This gratefully has made perfect sense to every parent I have ever laid it out to. Once we really look at the idea behind the punitive model—from threats, to time outs, to yelling, to withdrawing privileges—it boils down to one question, Do you really think if you want your children to do better, you first need to make them feel worse?
· I am grateful for all of you who are swimming against the current of popular parenting to leave behind the old standbys of rewards and punishments that hurt children both now and in their futures.
· I am grateful to all of you who hang in there during these tough times to get your kids to school and tuck them in at night with kisses and hugs so you can fall exhausted into bed yourselves.
· I am grateful to all of you who want to keep learning and healing and growing. You are serving your children so well by doing that.
· I am grateful to all of you who have found my work, learned from it, and support it forward. If it weren’t for you, I’d be out of a job!
· And I am grateful to my children who show me the results of having committed myself to this way of raising children—and who in turn are raising their children this way—to be resilient, respectful, confidant, responsible, and happy human beings.
Because of all of you, we are leaving the world a better place by raising children who will leave their world a better place. Keep on keeping on — and keep spreading this work. Each and every one of us has something to be thankful for.
I want you all to know that I’m still here! I’m not planning on going anywhere (except to visit Nashville to see my daughter and soon-to-be new grandson!).
· You can always reach me at bh@bonnieharris.com for a 1-on-1 session.
· Listen to my podcast Tell Me About Your Kids anywhere you get podcasts.
· You can buy my books at The Toadstool
· If you don’t get my newsletter, sign up for it on my website www.bonnieharris.com
· If you’d like to know about a topic, write it in the search bar on my site and see what you come up with.
Here’s to a brighter New Year! See you around.