{"id":643,"date":"2006-09-19T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-19T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/chatteringmind\/2006\/09\/helping-your-kid-witness-not-j.html"},"modified":"2006-09-19T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-09-19T12:00:00","slug":"helping-your-kid-witness-not-j","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/09\/helping-your-kid-witness-not-j.html","title":{"rendered":"Helping Your Kid Witness, Not Judge"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Yesterday in the car, 12-year-old Chattering Son One said, “I don’t like ________[a boy at school]. He’s mean and cynical.” <\/p>\n

At first, I beamed at the use of the word “cynical” since I’d never heard him use it before. Then, I inwardly resonated–because I don’t warm to this kid either.<\/p>\n

But instead of saying, “Yeah, that guy IS a turkey,” I tried to help my son comprehend the depths of this child’s suffering by sharing details of his family life to which I was privy. But my son already knew. Oh, okay. Now what? <\/strong>A wave of helplessness fell over me because the mere contemplation of another’s hardship seems so antiquated-ly liberal<\/em> (remember I sprang from Republican parents). I mean, shouldn’t folks, even young people, be accountable for their rotten behavior? A part of ultra-accepting, progressive me falls back into dividing all human beings into two groups: those who are worthy, and those who are not. <\/p>\n

So, what should I do to help my son to NOT model the worst of me?<\/p>\n

I advised him not to put energy into disliking the boy in question, but to instead notice the boy’s behavior and sit with whatever comes up. Just notice. Maybe a part of my son is disowning this other fellow’s attributes. Maybe the other boy owns my son’s shadow. <\/p>\n

We vowed to stay in touch with the feelings and talk more about this later. <\/p>\n

What do you do when you find yourself hating someone’s guts?<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday in the car, 12-year-old Chattering Son One said, “I don’t like ________[a boy at school]. He’s mean and cynical.” At first, I beamed at the use of the word “cynical” since I’d never heard him use it before. Then, I inwardly resonated–because I don’t warm to this kid either. But instead of saying, “Yeah,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":374,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nHelping Your Kid Witness, Not Judge - Chattering Mind<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/09\/helping-your-kid-witness-not-j.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Helping Your Kid Witness, Not Judge - Chattering Mind\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yesterday in the car, 12-year-old Chattering Son One said, “I don’t like ________[a boy at school]. He’s mean and cynical.” At first, I beamed at the use of the word “cynical” since I’d never heard him use it before. Then, I inwardly resonated–because I don’t warm to this kid either. But instead of saying, “Yeah,…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/09\/helping-your-kid-witness-not-j.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Chattering Mind\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-09-19T12:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"chattering mind\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Helping Your Kid Witness, Not Judge - Chattering Mind","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/09\/helping-your-kid-witness-not-j.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Helping Your Kid Witness, Not Judge - Chattering Mind","og_description":"Yesterday in the car, 12-year-old Chattering Son One said, “I don’t like ________[a boy at school]. He’s mean and cynical.” At first, I beamed at the use of the word “cynical” since I’d never heard him use it before. Then, I inwardly resonated–because I don’t warm to this kid either. But instead of saying, “Yeah,…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/09\/helping-your-kid-witness-not-j.html","og_site_name":"Chattering Mind","article_published_time":"2006-09-19T12:00:00+00:00","author":"chattering mind","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/09\/helping-your-kid-witness-not-j.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/09\/helping-your-kid-witness-not-j.html","name":"Helping Your Kid Witness, Not Judge - Chattering Mind","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-09-19T12:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2006-09-19T12:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/#\/schema\/person\/8ac8611ed5893441997fe2f474a954b5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/09\/helping-your-kid-witness-not-j.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/09\/helping-your-kid-witness-not-j.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/09\/helping-your-kid-witness-not-j.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Helping Your Kid Witness, Not Judge"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/","name":"Chattering Mind","description":"Amy Cunningham, Spirituality blog, Beliefnet Spiritual parenting blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/#\/schema\/person\/8ac8611ed5893441997fe2f474a954b5","name":"chattering mind","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"chattering mind"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/author\/chattering-mind"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/374"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}