AS an adult there is very little to compare to the joy you experience when you catch a new-born baby smiling or laughing.
It is something that puts us in awe of the wonders of the world and nature in general. Normally serious people, can behave like juvenile silly idiots in the presence of a small baby. Why is this I wonder?
I believe the answer lies in the fact that there is a bit of a child in all of us and in the presence of a small baby we feel we have a licence to take the shackles off.
Maybe it is the security of knowing that they won’t shout back at us and tell us that we look like a bloody clown.
A further reason is knowing that a small baby won’t judge us and if our behaviour is particularly idiotic, it will draw an even more enhanced laughter.
In fact the more idiotic the behaviour, the higher the level of revelry.
If we are to be honest it’s something that provides great mutual joy and also the key is for the adult to decide when enough is enough.
Young children provide us with an opportunity to take ‘the mask off’ and to come down to their level.
This is an interesting point because as we (adults) have to take our mask off to become level, that would suggest that young babies don’t have a mask.
Therefore being in the company of small children is a great source of freedom – they are free-spirited and what you see is what you get both in words and deeds.
I was visiting a man once who was dying of liver cancer. His skin had become quite jaundiced as a result (as adults we were obviously quite concerned about this), but when his grandson came into the room he shouted out with delight –“ look, look grandad has a fantastic tan”.
This brought a squeal of laughter and suddenly lightened what was otherwise a very challenging situation and I know for a fact that it brought great joy to the child’s grandad.
That is a classic example of where the saying ‘out of the mouth of babes’ comes from.
I’m sure many of you reading this will have many, many examples of this in your own lives.
On a personal level I had a great experience of this with my own son. He was about 4 yrs of age and sitting on a bed when I walked into the room complaining of a dreadful headache (obviously I had taken too much ‘red grape juice’ the night before!).
He looked up at me with those innocent eyes and said “daddy what’s a headache ?” I was just about to launch into a real in-depth analytical answer when he said; “Is it when your head hurts on the inside and you haven’t banged it off of anything?”
Now that really put me in my box!
It is that freedom, that joy, that wonderous, exploring , inquisitive approach to living in this world that draws us to children. They can often come up with the most rudimental answers to the most difficult situations and it would behold all of us to look at the world through the ‘eyes’ of a child.
It was that kind of thinking that inspired Michael Jackson to write that powerful song ‘We Are The World’
Everyone talks about mindfulness (living in the present) now but there is nothing more mindful than a 3 year old child attempting to put a triangle into a triangle shape or a square into a square shape etc and giving all of his/her undivided attention into trying to figure it out.
They could certainly teach us adults a thing or two about mindfulness.
So mind our children, they are precious and they are our future!
Next week I am going to write about ‘Conditioning’
• Roger Harty is a life coach and can be contacted on 087-6128336, on twitter at @Innerjoyz1 or by email rogharty@gmail.com
