During the Covid epidemic I was standing in the grocery line waiting for my turn.  I asked the woman in front of me if I can say hi to her little one. There were coy smiles exchanged then I asked the mother: “What are you telling her about the masks?” She answered: “She’s only two and a half. Not much, really.” I suggested, “When a moment, a tiny moment, opens you could say what I said to my friend’s grandson: “Look how everyone out there is taking care of everyone else, wearing a mask so we all stay safe. So strong and healthy. What do you do to be strong and healthy?” I made a muscle with my arm. The little one hiding behind her mom’s leg peered out and smiled again; the seed was sown. She may now be able to see herself wearing a mask to help others, as opposed to merely feeling the fear or annoyance that most adults felt during the pandemic. This small act might have made the bigger picture seem not so insurmountable; it made the day-to-day have the potential of bringing change. This perspective needed to have a light shone upon it. 

 

There is so much that needs fixing, healing, and tending to in the world we live in. It can be overwhelming. It can be easy to succumb to the belief, even subconsciously, that we’re too small and powerless to make a difference. And we inadvertently can signal to our children that it’s safer to do nothing. 

 

If we stick with such reasoning it becomes circular, self-perpetuating, and harmful to the Child’s nature. It is an attitude that can drain us of the will and energy to act for a better world and a better life. The goal is to never let the enormity of what needs to be done keep us from doing the incremental parts that are necessary for change. It’s important that we instill the values of activism and service to others in our children. “Doing our part,” whatever that means to each of us, makes us see that we each matter and that things can, and do, change, even if at times only slowly and incrementally. As parents, our goal is to help the Child develop the facility and agency to act for themselves and in service of something bigger than themselves—to nurture and encourage their natural desires to help others. 

 

Jungian psychoanalyst and writer, Dr. Clarissa Pincola Estes, teaches that underneath cynicism is a broken heart, the disappointment of ideals and hopes that have been crushed. The Child Self may have experienced hopes that were dismissed or ridiculed and may have absorbed a cynicism from the parent raising them. Noticing the Child Self’s pain can shine a light on why we have become cynical and hopeless as adults—to believe that there is nothing we can do to improve our lives or the world. But there is. First, we must recognize that we are not alone and are not supposed to do the work by ourselves. 

 

We have a responsibility to teach the Child and encourage the Child Self that it is ok to open one’s eyes and not look away from what’s real and what needs doing, protecting, and sheltering. We do this by removing the “should” and eliminating guilt as the motivator. We reflect what is right and just to the Child and we act simply on that reflection. It is important to support developing thoughtfulness by guiding, modeling, and mirroring back to the Child that they have had a positive effect when they have been thoughtful, kind, generous. 

 

When we’re stuck in fear, doubt and suffering, we are not providing ourselves, the Child, or the Child Self more truth, protection, light, or success. We are reinforcing the exact opposite.  The Child Self will reverberate with the messages of what was ok to notice and to choose to do something about directly related to what they learned from childhood, but it may not represent the values of the Adult Self. The Child Self will need support to open their eyes, to see past conditioning and to choose what to act on as an adult. 

 

To the Child Self, and the Child we are raising, we can say:

 

“Little one, you are just one tiny pebble, so am I. Look I am throwing the pebble into the still water. See what happens, the pebble makes a lot of water move, it moves out to the very edge of the pond and makes the grasses wiggle. That is what we do, we change things by being a pebble that jumps in and helps. We can be like the pebble in the water and make what we do spread out far.”

 

By tending to the Child Self, and if we are raising children, tending better and more consciously to them, we can cultivate a fertile ground for the value of activism, of doing something to make things better for others. 

 

I worked with a group of third graders in a Philadelphia public school. As their service-learning project, they had chosen to work on stopping violence in their neighborhood. The teachers gave them facts and shared stories to set the focus. I started with this question: “You have been thinking about what you can do to stop the violence in your neighborhood. What have you thought about?” These were their ideas: Every house should have fences around them and alarm systems; there should be more policemen; and we should get rid of smoke shops. Their answers were all about how they could feel physically safe, mostly by what others could do for them. 

 

My goal was to help them think about why there is violence in the first place and what we could do for ourselves to be strong, calm, clear thinking, and not turn to violence to solve problems. To begin the project, I had to combat their overwhelming belief that they were powerless to change the pervasiveness of violence and see how doing their part, though small and incremental, can contribute to meaningful change. They were convinced easily that what they did for themselves mattered because the adults around them believed that and helped them with this concept. They had the support for what felt true to them, even though how it would actually manifest change in their real and dangerous communities was not clear. 

 

We built a pond in a plastic wading pool in the classroom, and everyone got some pebbles. We threw our pebbles into the pond, one at a time. Observing the effect on the water in the pond inspired the conversation of the how some small act can radiate beyond each of us. Then we did an art project, creating something beautiful for each of them to take home to remind them that they are worthy of beauty and self-care, and something to give to someone who had felt the effects of neighborhood violence and therefore to care for them as well. 

 

Never let the enormity of what needs to be done

 keep you from doing the incremental parts necessary for change.