Breaking (is) Bad

Parenting is a tough gig at times as we try to guide young independent, autonomous, thinking, beings along the pathway of life in the least harmful and smoothest way we can manage. Just like that last sentence it is a clunky, difficult to negotiate, task at times when kids just won't listen or be guided by us. We often impose our will against our kids to bend them in the right direction, like training up a young sapling, helping it to grow straight. But sometimes in the process we can start to break our kids spirit. 
Now spirits are resilient, they are strengthened by challenge and benefit from learning, but they can become increasingly brittle and fragile if we keep handling them in the wrong way.
Often our well intentioned comments are chipping away at our young persons spirit without us or them noticing. Over time this can have a profound effect on how young people see themselves and how they fit and operate in the world around them. The attached file has some very useful advice for looking at what we do now and how we can change that into more spirit nurturing habits.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1icQlZkq1q35aKMGsNZwNyAs0hvziEyGN/view?usp=sharing

I discovered this fantastic resource a while back (The Big Life Journal) which keeps supplying useful information that I wish I had had when I was a young parent. The downloadable file I think you will find very useful and keep an eye out for many more to come, as I have emailed the Big Journal and they are happy for me to reuse their material in this way.