BEGIN HERE: NURTURE – THE BASE FOR ALL LIFE
“Science will take a thousand years to learn what kindness has always known.”
Nurture comes from the Latin word nutrire “to nourish”, which means to feed another in ways that them to develop and grow.
To nurture someone means to care for and protect them while they are growing so that they achieve their full growth. Nourishing children promotes their well-being and happiness so that they can live happy lives now and in the future.
To nurture means to nourish the inner self or another, to give them the emotional nutrients that will enable them to be comfortable with who they are and to be able to fully engage with life.
THE POWER OF NOURISHING
Nourishing can include encouraging, protecting, carrying, cherishing or cultivating a child’s inner sense of self as well as the physical duties of shelter, food, clothing, protection and caregiving. Nurturing children as vulnerable members of our species means providing all of the necessary conditions they need to develop without damage or harm.
Nurturing your child means that you pay attention to them and are able to support and encourage them in ways that foster what is growing, healthy and life-affirming within them.
There is nothing more powerful that one human being could do for another!
WHY SHOULD WE NOURISH CHILDREN?
Besides being humane, adult, behaviour nourishing children is important because nurture:
1. Gives children all of the sense of safety, capacity and self value that will be their baseline as adults. Nurture is the primary ingredient that determines whether children feel they are valuable or worthless, safe or unsafe, whole or flawed,
2. This baseline in turns affects what children are able to do & how much they can enjoy.
3. Nurture determines how happy children feel inside and therefore how much they enjoy being alive.
This inner feeling is the very basis of human experiencing. Therefore nurturing children is of critical importance for each small, vulnerable person and also for the future of our species. It is the most important action for species survival.
A Life Dependent on Our Kindness
THE FOUNDATION FOR POWERFUL MOTHERING IS NOURISHING CHILDREN WELL
Effective caring and strong protection of the child are required for internal talents to awaken in the child and to emerge safely.
Each child is born perfect and complete, with all of his or her potential inside. So often Mothers feel stressed because they believe that they have to cause their child’s growth or, worse, force it to occur, but this is not true!
All we have to do is feed and protect our child and their unique self and strengths will emerge perfect and whole!
Just as a single tiny apple seed has all of the ingredients and coding within it to become a perfect apple tree, your child is a complete person already encoded with his or her unique and perfect self.
Add soil, water and light to an apple seed and shield its growth and a small apple tree will emerge. Protect that growth and eventually it will be strong enough to bear fruit and create on its own. Like the apple seed, a child’s self is already fully there, no matter how small, and it needs is nourishment, support and protection to grow.
This means that you can RELAX! The child’s self is not something mothers have to design and put together like a lego kit! You don’t have to make a person using your own limited knowing and self!! Goodness! Where would we start?
Your child’s perfect self is already inside them. Your role is to protect and nourish them so their inborn self and goodness can emerge by itself in its own perfect time. This is doable.
Instead of worrying about how to “construct the perfect child” you can focus on nourishing as something that will do its own perfect work. To do this you need to know how to nourish and fill yourself up. Society expects mothers to do their work without pay, nourishment or support but this is unrealistic. To nourish others we must first be nourished ourselves
NOURISHING YOURSELF: THE BASIS FOR NOURISHING YOUR CHILD
If you were nurtured as a child you will find this as natural as breathing. If you were not you can learn to self-nourish. This is the foundational first step for Powerful Mothering.
“When a woman’s life matters she can do anything,” said the wonderful Margaret Mead. This is true. A strong sense of our own worth and dignity helps us to recognize the worth and dignity of our child. That makes it easier for us to nourish with kind, gentle strength. Powerful Mothering is dedicated to nourishing you as a Mother so that you, in turn, can nurture your children.
Each step on this site tries to provide a small something you can do. Even if you are on your own, have little support or weren’t parented well yourself.
Powerful Mother Training builds upon itself step-by-step, one moment at a time, which is really, all any of us ever have to do. Just attend to this one moment well. Step-by-step you will then find that, by day’s end, you have managed the entire day well! Not perfectly, but well.
When we tend to ourselves and our children each day, tomorrow takes care of itself.
Take care of you. Your life matters.
Hold your precious self and your child’s self gently and well.
See “Nurture” pinned at: http://www.pinterest.com/powerful4kids/powerful-care-nurture/