When we are growing up, we learn from everybody around us. We learn how to interact with others; how to share, how to eat, how to think. We believe most of what we are told growing up, and if we don’t believe it, we might be shouted at, or told we are wrong; and we soon learn not to speak up, to ‘swallow’ others’ opinions we don’t necessarily agree with at the time.

It could be argued that, if we grow up healthily, we are encouraged to question the world.

Ideally, we would be taught to form our own opinions and respect other people’s opinions, but not necessarily subscribe to them. However, if we aren’t encouraged to question things, if we are told lies by adults we look up to and trust, we’ll probably learn to follow what we are told. We will learn to think as we have been told and act on this information without questioning its validity.

Don’t-Know Mind, or Beginners Mind, is a Buddhist principle. It helps remind us that clinging to certainty, although natural, can cause us suffering. In parenting, it can interfere with our children’s innate ability to learn from experience.

There aren’t many jobs we sign up for in life where the stakes are as high as they are in parenting. We are suddenly required to be on call 24/7 without prior training, schooling, or mentoring. No matter how many books we have read, or how many children we have spent time with, we enter this job mostly ignorant of what it entails. Living outside of parenting and observing it is unfathomably different than living inside of it.

In our culture we like to “know” what we are doing. We read books, we do research, we seek control over our lives in myriad ways.

Good parenting, however, requires “don’t-know mind.” It is a letting go of preconceived ideas and a letting go of the notion that we have control over how things are.

Applying self-compassion to parenting can be incredibly valuable, according to psychologist and author Kristin Neff, Ph.D, in her book Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind.

It’s especially helpful if you’re raising a child who’s under 5. As Neff writes, “Raising infants and toddlers, with their constant need for supervision, picky food habits, tantrums, not to mention dirty diapers, has to be one of the most challenging jobs around.”

In Self-Compassion, Neff shares the work of Australian psychologist Rebecca Coleman, Ph.D. Coleman has developed a parenting program called Mindful Awareness Parenting (MAP). It teaches parents mindfulness and self-compassion skills and helps them make good decisions in tough situations.

Though much has been written about how to deal with parents who are slowing down physically and mentally, I’ve read nothing about how to deal with parents who have become wiser and kinder.

It may seem like there’s no problem if your parents have become better people. Just count your blessings and get on with life! But it’s not always that simple.

Mike grumbles, “I can’t believe my father wants to be so involved with my kids. When I was growing up, he barely gave me the time of day. “Shut up! Do your homework! Listen to your mother!” That was pretty much the extent of our relationship. And now, he wants to take my son to school, coach his games, take him on a trip. Who is this new person? And how come I got the short end of the stick?”

Kim gripes, “My mother was always on my case. I had to dress right, speak right, eat right and live right. Otherwise, what would people think? Now, when I berate my daughter for not acting properly, my mother comes to her defense, telling me that I’m too hard on her. It makes me furious. She was 10 times harder on me than I am on my daughter. What’s going on here?”

Do you fly off the handle for “no reason”? Have you been accused of being “hot-headed”? When the emotional intensity and severity of your behavior doesn’t match the situation at hand, you are overreacting.

There are two kinds of overreactions: external and internal. External overreactions are visible responses that others can see (for example, lashing out in anger, throwing your hands up and walking away from a situation).  Internal overreactions are emotional responses that remain inside of you that others may or may not be aware of.  Examples of internal overreactions are replaying a situation over and over in your head, wondering if you said the right thing, or overanalyzing a comment made by a friend or loved one.

In her book Stop Overreacting: Effective Strategies for Calming Your Emotions, author Dr. Judith P. Siegel suggests asking yourself the following questions to assess whether you have a problem with overreacting.

Children are often asked to forgive: forgive his sibling for taking their toy; forgive Johnny for pulling her hair at recess; forgive Mom for being late.

When you ask your child to forgive — to say “okay” when someone has said they are “sorry” — does your child really understand what that means? Did they let go of the issue or are they repeating what you are telling them to say?

It is important for children to understand compassion, loving-kindness, and forgiveness. Teaching your child to forgive is an essential life tool that will make navigating childhood and adolescence easier. Holding on to anger and resentment is a recipe for anxiety and depression for children and adults. The earlier forgiveness is taught, the earlier you can prevent children from taking on the victim role. That in turn helps prevent anxiety and depression.

So how do you teach forgiveness?

Real men repress their emotions. Real men are self-reliant. Real men are aggressive and apathetic.

These are the messages we get about masculinity in our society. We get these messages from a variety of sources, including TV, film and computer and video games. And they come from a variety of people in our lives, including peers, parents and coaches, according to Ted Zeff, Ph.D, a psychologist and author of Raise An Emotionally Healthy Boy: Save Your Son From The Violent Boy Culture and The Strong Sensitive Boy: Help Your Son Become a Happy, Confident Man.

But these are false messages. And they can be detrimental, he said. Men are less likely to seek medical help. Repressing emotions can lead to health problems such as ulcers, high blood pressure and heart attacks, Zeff said.

This guest article from YourTango was written by Kelly P. Crossing.

We’ve all heard the same stories about divorce: the parent who does his best to badmouth his ex, the parent who tries to keep the kids away from the ex as some sort of punishment, the parent who manipulates child support payments. These things do happen and plenty of children are harmed because of these and other divorce-related mistakes.

On the other hand, many parents do divorce right. Lots of parents understand that divorce is terribly hard on their children. These parents try to minimize the trauma every step of the way.

Here are five divorce techniques parents get right…

When you think of your mother, does your heart open with compassion or tighten with resentment? Do you allow yourself to feel her tenderness and care? The way you take in her love can be similar to how you experience love from a partner.

What’s unresolved with your parents doesn’t automatically disappear. It serves as a template that forges your later relationships.

Maybe you’ve experienced this with a partner. If you felt you didn’t get enough from your mother, perhaps you also feel that you don’t get “enough” from your partner. It’s a harsh reality, but it’s true more often than not. The same holds true with your father: Your unresolved relationship with your father will also show up in your love life.

Ask the Therapists Marie Hartwell-Walker, Ed.D. and Daniel J. Tomasulo, Ph.D., TEP, MFA talk about children masturbating and engaging in other apparently-sexual activities at a …

Emotional abuse is elusive. Unlike physical abuse, the people doing it and receiving it may not even know it’s happening.

It can be more harmful than physical abuse because it can undermine what we think about ourselves. It can cripple all we are meant to be as we allow something untrue to define us. Emotional abuse can happen between parent and child, husband and wife, among relatives and between friends.

The abuser projects their words, attitudes or actions onto an unsuspecting victim usually because they themselves have not dealt with childhood wounds that are now causing them to harm others.

Did you know that simply watching TV causes harm to children? Well, that’s what the American Academy of Pediatrics would have you believe. And yet, here we are in the sixth decade since TV became popular, and we have not yet seen the end of the world based upon multiple generations that grew up with television as a mainstay.

The latest issue of Pediatrics has two studies — and a bonus editorial! — that suggests television viewing by children is associated with greater criminality and antisocial personality, and that a child’s behavior can be modified by simply changing what they’re watching.

Pediatrics is the mouthpiece for the American Academy of Pediatrics. And while it’s ostensibly an objective, scientific journal, it continually publishes weak research — especially on the effects of TV and children.

Let’s check out the latest…