Parenting Tips: Foreshadowing for Your Child
I wrote my 8 Tips for Parents piece a while ago, and I just wanted to share one of those 8 tips today called, “Foreshadowing”. I borrowed this literary term to describe the exercise of narrating the future for your child. This is basically a technique that gives your child something to shoot for. In other words, it gives them a direction or a pathway to follow, and the advantageous part of this is that you are the one leading the way.
There is no doubt that parental expectations can be a powerful motivator especially in the early years. In the energy medicine system, this foreshadowing is happening all the time, and can be very useful if it is harnessed and used correctly.
Let’s take an example of preparing for school. This is a significant milestone around age 5. It includes the novelty of school with its rules, order, and social scene. At the same time it involves the necessary
absence of you as the parent, as your child enters the long process of becoming educated through the school system. By foreshadowing what will happen when your child enters school for the first time, you can essentially prepare them in advance. This can take the form of statements directly to your child or to others. It can take the form of actions, like visiting the school itself, going to the playground, or maybe meeting teachers or the principal. These preparatory steps are basically foreshadowing for your child what school will be like.
I often recommend that parents make statements like, “I wonder what you’re going to learn in kindergarten?” or “How many friends do you think you’ll make in your first month of school?” These types of statements foreshadow the positive aspects of the upcoming scenario and they can make it much easier for your child to make this important adjustment.
Here are three things I want you to remember about this topic called foreshadowing:
1. Foreshadowing allows your child to get in sync with your expectations of the future.
2. This means they have something to shoot for, or a pathway to follow.
3. Foreshadowing is best used with open ended, nonchalant, “I wonder” type of statements and questions.
Another very important tip is to use what I call “gossiping”. If your child hears you talking to someone else about them, their ears are sure to perk up. In the energy medicine way of looking at your child, this can happen even if your child is too young to understand what you’re saying. The typical scenario would be if you are talking on the phone to grandma, and you mention something about your child by name. Something like “Guess how well Bobby is doing in school?”, or “You should see how fast Bobby is learning to read!”. These statements directed at other people but particularly extended family members can be like gold.
If you make use of this technique, I am optimistic that you will see your child responding to new situations or previously stress provoking ones in a more calm and confident manner. So keep foreshadowing in mind as a technique you can use whenever you see an opportunity to prepare your child for the near or the distant future. Give it a try, and let me know what kind of results you get.
If you liked this tip, you may want to know the other seven included in my 8 Tips for Parents here.
Very good post Peter, educational, entertaining and enlightening… you write with clarity and an obvious passion. It is an area that so many, would be blog authors over-look.
I found a particular resonance with your comment… “So keep foreshadowing in mind as a technique you can use whenever you see an opportunity to prepare your child for the near or the distant future.”
How would you suggest foreshadowing a child that is starting nursery school where the language spoken is foreign to him/her?
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for your kind remarks. I think a child starting nursery school is in that fortunate age group where picking up a foreign language is quite easy to accomplish just by simple exposure and immersion.
One thing you might consider is playing music or spoken audio recordings to familiarize them with how the language sounds beforehand. However, I believe there is no better way than to play and interact with other children in real time in order to learn a new language. The young child’s brain is like a sponge that will absorb anything new in its vicinity.
One other thing I would suggest is several “pre-visits” to the nursery school site to let them get used to the environment. I would be more inclined to think the building, teacher and general environment may take more getting used to than the novelty of the language. Hope this helps!
Thanks for this Peter,
It seems to me that the foreshadowing process you describe is also about getting kids to use their imagination about what they might experience. This can only be good for them, if, as you say, we focus on the possible positive outcomes.
Thanks
Chris
Yes, Chris,
I agree that imagination and visualization can be powerful and helpful to kids themselves. I also like to point out that a parent’s own imagination and thoughts regarding a topic or event will be transmitted to the child automatically from an energy standpoint, and many kids can pick up on this information in real time. Therefore, it makes sense to “broadcast” the best possible visualized outcome and the emotional, energetic and feeling aspects of it as well, so that the child has something to shoot for and expect. Even better, if this is done frequently, when the real event comes up in time, it will feel “familiar” to the child because they have experienced the foreshadowing already beforehand.
Dr.Pete,
The article on ‘Foreshadowing for your child’ is really an eye opener for most of us,especially for those who have young children.It is best to infuse into them(children) when they are very young, rather than waiting to do the same when they are older–when they have a mind set of their own. Your subject is so important, especially now that there are so many sad happenings. In terms of human relationships,love thy neighbors–irrespective of their colour, race,religion. See the amount of deaths just in the name of religion. How in some countries they have been taught to hate from a very young age. Your article is very timely,to all young parents–you (parents)have the right tool,here,to create good,loving future-good world.
Dr.Pete,you have also given examples for easy,practical understanding.I am going ahead to read your other article.
THANK YOU.
Dr.Subhassh