The Human Community

Part I

Raising a child is hard. It is one of the biggest undertakings in life. As a father, I am very aware of the onus I have in raising a responsible, compassionate, loving, forgiving, and happy person in my son. Everything that he encounters will impact his life, society, and the planet. Granted, there are very important jobs that people do that impact the same; however, you can't become an adult without going through childhood first. Therefore, being a parent is the most important role in human life. The second most important role is teacher. Everyone of us is a teacher, whether you realize it or not. It is the teacher aspect that molds and defines the human community. We as human beings need to take our blinders off and stop treating life as a soliloquy and start paying attention to each other.

Currently, my son is four; the world is full of new discoveries every second. Due to life being a gambit of bridges and obstacles, conflict resolution is something that comes up frequently. Naturally, I am a human being, so I'm not infallible; yet, I still make the effort to guide my son. There are times when my son is playing with friends or with a group of playground mates and a conflict arises. Early in fatherhood, I would step in and try to stay the disagreement; however, upon sage advice from my wife, I now let him and the other children 'figure it out' among themselves. 80% of the time, all is well. The other 20% is a major factor in shaping how your child responds to conflict and stress. I believe, that if I continually jump in the middle of my son's conflicts with other children, then he will never learn how to resolve them. He will not learn how to compromise, deal with his anger, or even seek help. Helping children with conflict resolution is an obvious way to circumvent bullying. The only time I step in is when it is obvious that the conflict will become physical. Sadly, our children do not experience bullying only from their peers, sometimes they experience it from their parents, other family members and other adults. In part two I will go into what I believe that parents, other adults, and peers can do to be teachers.

Edmund

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