Breaking cycles

NEW ZEALAND’s KNOWN for some awesome things – incredible natural resources and scenery … first to grant women the right to vote … top-notch sports teams … Kiwi ingenuity (number 8 wire to the rescue!) … But we’re also leading the world in ways we’re not so proud of; we’ve got some of the highest rates of domestic violence amongst OECD countries … soaring bullying and youth suicide rates … and concerning levels of binge drinking.

The stats might make us despair; but if you’re raising children today – or otherwise interacting with fellow humans – then you CAN make a difference. Breaking negative cycles starts with us – so let’s look at a few ways we can improve things from the ground up. 

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IDENTIFY PATTERNS

What’s your default response to stress? What’s your regular reaction when your kids mess up? How do you handle disappointment … disrespect … or disharmony? Tuning in to these things can help us identify patterns in our actions and reactions. Looking at our upbringing can uncover attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours that we’ve inherited from previous generations, too. Turning the lens inwards is the first step; the next step is to figure out whether the patterns we’ve noticed are helpful, harmful, or neutral. 

EVALUATE

“What’s wrong with giving kids the odd smack? My parents whacked me, and I turned out OK!” Sound familiar? If you’re parenting the way you were parented – and in a way that current experts are highlighting as harmful – maybe it’s time for new tools and healthier habits? On the flip side, you might want to intentionally bring specific things your parents did (which helped you feel nurtured or supported) into your kids’ childhoods. Don’t take these things for granted; figure out what needs to change, and which habits and traditions to keep. The same process is necessary for non-parents, too; evaluating our habitual behaviours is a natural part of evolving as people and improving how we show up in the world.

LEARN

This is all about getting tools under our belts to make changes for the better. It’s far easier to establish new habits to replace the old than it is to just vow to NOT do the things that you’ve previously defaulted to! Parenting classes … books or articles (like those in Grapevine!) addressing your particular family dynamics and issues … and conversations with wise friends navigating similar challenges, all provide great opportunities to learn. “When we know better, we can do better”. This is also the step that allows us to avoid swinging too far in the opposite direction – reacting to an overly-strict upbringing by adopting a fully permissive parenting style, or going from an unparented ‘latchkey kid’, to becoming a helicopter parent with your own kids.

HEAL

Who knew that anxiety could masquerade as rage?? How do your own long-buried childhood hurts bubble so quickly to the surface when your child’s facing injustice from a peer? Why does it sting so much when a mild criticism … a dismissal … or a rebuke is aimed at you, your kid, or your parenting? Everyone – EVERYONE – has healing to do. The world’s a messy place … families are imperfect … and we’re all works in progress. If we don’t examine triggers when they provoke us, and work on healing old hurts, we don’t just miss an opportunity to grow positively as humans – we often end up wounding others, even unintentionally. “Hurt people hurt people,” as the saying goes. So doing the work to heal will pay dividends. Therapy … prayer … journaling … mindfulness … and similar practises might seem foreign or even wishy-washy to you, but there’s plenty of evidence emerging from the field of behavioural neuroscience that they’re powerfully effective.

MAKE PROGRESS. RINSE AND REPEAT.

Breaking cycles isn’t a linear process; it’s … well, cyclical. By being aware of our own patterns … reflecting on our personal and familial history … gaining new information and tools … and healing old wounds (instead of allowing them to hurt the people around us) … we’ll be making progress towards a better and brighter future – for our families, and for the country as a whole. 

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