Nonjudgmental Awareness

Try this – watch your child, for just a few seconds or minutes, without making judgments or drawing conclusions of any kind.  Try not to identify behavior as good or bad, desirable or undesirable, acceptable or in need of correction.  Try to simply observe them.  And, if you like, see if you might be able to imagine what they are experiencing, in that moment.

At least several times a week I catch myself making snap value judgments about things I see my son doing (usually negative – watching TV is bad, torturing the cat is very bad), and I try to gently guide myself back to some level of nonjudgmental awareness, at least for a moment.  To create that critical gap between observation and reaction, if only for a few seconds, that gives me a chance to see what he’s doing in a different light, from another perspective besides my instinctive reaction.

When I do, instead of seeing him about to break the chair, I might see him using his imagination and flying a spaceship. Instead of seeing him about to crush the cat, I see that he’s protecting her with his arms while he hugs her.

Of course, for every time I catch myself, there must be 5 more when I don’t. So I try to have a little nonjudgmental awareness of my own behavior too.