We are quite literally born to love. There is an indisputable truth that all life arrives in the
biosphere, the LifeSpace we mutually inhabit, intrinsically encoded not only to survive
and thrive, but to attach, bond, and construct meaningful relationships within the larger
human collective.
As mammals, we seek connection first with our mothers, urgently reaching out for
warmth and security, nurturance and engagement, as if the new brain senses and acts
from deep within its’ genetic code, “Get mom, get mom, get mom.” Babies must initiate
immediate dialogue with their mothers in which each new brain asks, “What do we do
here?” and “How do we do it?” and to which each mother is uniquely positioned to
answer back, “We love, we work, we play, we create.”
Within the LifeSpace, first mothers, and then others, teach and coach children that we
are bound together by a social contract, a code of conduct that teaches us to live in
relationship with others; gradually learning to gain control over hedonic self-gratification
in favor of behaviors and attitudes that benefit the greater good. It is, in fact, the “wired-in”
expectation of a child’s brain to be in the midst of the parent’s life, witnessing and
learning through the everyday parent-child moments of love and laughter, limits and
boundaries, and tasks and directions, how to develop self-love, self-discipline, and self-control.
Herein lies the fundamental challenge, as we are confronted in the 21st century, by the
staggering number of children who do not receive an answer or receive answers
counter to the social contract articulated in the diverse cultures of the human tribe.
Rather than learning that they fit, belong, are loved, and are safe, they learn the very
opposite; ultimately knowing themselves to be outside of the human tribe, either
perceiving unyielding rejection and exile despite their repeated efforts to fit and belong,
or desperate to gain some measure of safety through self-imposed withdrawal and
isolation.
The WisdomPath Way Reparative Parenting Approach is my response to this crisis,
as it is my firm belief that our best hope lies with teaching and coaching resource/adoptive and kinship parents to help traumatized children heal. Parents are our most natural and rich resource, and as such, it is imperative that we provide them with the reparative parenting tools needed to truly give children a second chance to believe that loving and being loved, fitting and belonging, is what we are here to do.
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