Ren Allen

"Does that mean that the reaction of the child who cried is "her
problem"? Does that mean that I do not feel responsible for the
impact of my yelling "boo" on the child who cried? Absolutely not!!"

Exactly.
Not being responsible for another person's happiness, does not
negate responsibility for our own actions.
We are responsible to treat our children in ways we know they like.
We are responsible to create the best possible environment for joy.
We are responsible to do our very best at treating the children in
our home with the same respect we'd give to adults and the
kindnesses we wished we'd been given as children.
We are responsible for our own emotional health.
We are responsible for setting boundaries.
We are responsible for sharing the best information we can with
people. (my personal one here:)
We are responsible fto listen when our children need to talk about
feelings.

We are NOT responsible for how people percieve us.
We are not ultimately responsible for whether another human being is
happy or angry or depressed, though we are obviously going to do our
best to help those we love when they're dealing with those feelings.

It's best to let go of that which we cannot control, and take
responsibility for that we DO control. I can control my own
emotional responses and actions. I can control the things I say. I
can control to a large degree, the environment in my home.
That's it.
Let go of the rest.

Ren

Robyn Coburn

<<<We are responsible for our own emotional health.
We are responsible for setting boundaries.>>>

This whole post is another keeper from Ren.

It has sparked a thought from me. As some of you know I am very interested
in discourses and language use.

It occurs to me that many people see the word "boundaries" and think
"limits", as if they were interchangeable. Maybe they are. But...I wonder if
in Unschooling and how these ideas are applying to the personal
responsibility thread it is more helpful to consider the idea that
boundaries come *from* a person - like the fences if you are standing in the
middle of a field, whereas limits (or setting limits) are the person
standing *outside* the field trying to enclose the fence around someone
else. All we may have the right to do is enclose our personal field
(hopefully with gates!) although we can/should help our children with their
constructions....

Robyn L. Coburn



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