A question of identity – Can you as a parent be a teacher and help your children learn?
Many a parent thinks that the role of helping their children learn should be left to the teacher, after all they will say “I’m not a teacher”. This need not be the case and as a parent with all your years of experience you are in fact an expert, you know far, far, more than your children.
Anthony Robbins says that “what we consider possible or impossible is rarely a function of our true capability. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are.”
How can you be a teacher to your children?
You can help your children learn outside the classroom, you can therefore be a teacher to your children.
Have you said to yourself I can’t do that, or that’s just not me or that would be impossible to do? If so you have, as Robbins says, “run up against the barriers of a limited identity”.
You have confined what you are able to do within certain boundaries because you see yourself as not being able to do something, it has become what you are and it has become part of your identity.
This is fine if you are dealing with something that is bad or just plain wrong. For example if you say to yourself “I’m not a car thief, that’s just not me”.
But what happens if you believe you are not something or can’t do something which if you could, would be of benefit to you and to others. What if you believe that you cannot help your children learn,what if you believe that you cannot be a teacher to them?
In this case the world has lost something special.
And if you do believe that you as a parent are also a teacher, if you expand your boundaries, and being a teacher becomes part of your identity, what then? Well, you and your children will have gained something really special.
