Preschool Genius Won't Listen

This is an excerpt from The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent.

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Preschool Genius "Won't Listen to His Teacher"

Guest: My questions pertain to my five-year-old son. He wont' listen to me.

Abraham: Good.

Guest: He wont' listen to any women. Men, a little better. A teacher asked me, "Can you get him to listen to me?" I tell her that he won't listen to me, And -

Abraham: Who is he listening to?

Guest: I guess his own head, because he told me, "You know, I live my life my way, and you do things sort of your way."

Abraham: He must be listening to us. (Fun)

Guest: Yes. and then he'll say, "Well, you said Abraham said..." He said, "I want to have fun." So the teacher said to him, "Well, do you not listen to me, Joseph, because you don't understand, or because you don't want to?" He said, "I don't want to." So she called me again. She said, well, he put a hole in his school paper. He wanted to do it, so he did it. And I said, "Joseph, you can't do that. You can vibrate what you want when you get in your house, but you're in mine now, so you've got to vibrate with me." So it's just the back and forth... it's the listening part. And then my mother pipes in with, "You should spank him; you should do this; you should do that. It didn't' kill me; it didn't' kill you," you know.

Abraham: Well, here is the thing. As Joseph is doing pretty much what he wants to do, if he could maintain that, then, when we visit with him 15 or 20 years from now and he is experiencing not only outrageous success in all areas of his life, but he is one of the most joyful people we have ever met, and we say, "Joseph, what is your secret?" He would say, “I had a driving influence, coming forth from within, that I listened to, louder than everybody else put together. Oh, my mother tried, yes, she did try. She even threatened to throw me out of the house. But I did not let anything dissuade me from my own Guidance System.”

Now, we are playing with you a little bit, but it is mothers like you who have left you as the “walking wounded” that you are. In other words, so many of you are not trusting your own guidance because you have yielded to the guidance of so many others who are ill equipped to really guide you, you see. And when you think about it, that teacher is guiding Joseph so that she will get from him what she wants, and you are guiding him so that you will get what you want. And who gets to guide him so that he will get what he wants? And that is the point that he is trying to make with everyone, you see. And we do not want to hurt everybody's feelings – but we are on his side.

Guest: What about his age? I mean, isn't he kind of young... I just don't want him to be an adult who doesn't listen to anyone and then...

Abraham: Well then, our purposes are crossed, because we want him to be an adult who does not listen to anyone. We want all of you to be adults who are not so controverted by what everybody else thinks that you contradict your own vibration and disallow what you really want.

We know what you are getting at, and here is what we would do: Here you have this little one who is rather clear about who he is, still remembering, and who is throwing some of what you are trying to teach him back at you, and who is giving you some grief here and there by not conforming. So, as you think about him and the Action Journey that he is taking, you have a lot of options here. In other words, you can watch it and he will be upset about it, or you can watch it and get into alignment with it. So tell us some of the positive aspects that you feel about him being, sort of, self-directed. Is there any advantage at all in that?

Guest: Yes, he has his own mind. And he's not a conformist. (Neither was I, when I was his age.) He tells you just how he feels so you know where he's coming from. He's not a phony person. [yes?] I think, in some ways, it will help him.

Abraham: But, beyond that, you can feel, from what you have heard today, that there is tremendous value in making up your mind and not wavering? [yes] And so, do you really want him to be someone who makes up his mind and does not waver – unless somebody else who is bigger and stronger and has more influence can get in his face and make him change his mind? In other words, do you want to teach him dis-empowerment or self-empowerment?

Guest: I want him to be self-empowered.

Abraham: And so, the only time that it conflicts with you is when his self-empowerment disagrees with your idea of what he should do?

Guest: When the teacher calls me. I just don't want to be a parent who's standing in the office because my son won't do what they want.

Abraham: But can you have it both ways? And this is the thing that we really want to put out to you: Can you have a child who is self-empowered, who really knows who he is, and a child who kowtows to what everybody else wants at the same time? [no] And how do you help him define who he should listen to and who he should not? In other words, do you want everyone who stands in the role of a teacher to be someone who gets his undivided attention? Because if that is the case, then do you not want to scrutinize the teachers? Do you not want to find out what they are trying to motivate him to? Do you not want to find out who they are and what their real intent is? In other words, would you not like to know if they are influencing him to vote Democrat or Republican or toward being a Christian, or toward...? You would like to know what their inner motivation is, would you not? And it might be really hard for you to sort all of that out, yes?

Would you not rather just say, “Ah, Joseph, you are someone who knows your own mind, who is tuned in to Pure, Positive Energy. I trust that you are going to be able to sort this out. And I am going to leave you to your relationships with all of these people. I am not going to get in the way and try to side with them. Or, I am not going to even get in the way and try to side with you. I am going to give you the opportunity that all of us had when we were born, of sifting through your experience, letting your experience help you define what you want – and then listening to your own Guidance to get you toward what you want.”

Do you think your son would choose failure? Do you think he would choose being unkind? You never see that, do you? Do you think he would choose being lazy? You do not see that either. In other words, you have seen no evidence of anything other than brilliance in this child, yet you are afraid to let him guide himself. And we think it is because, for a long time, adults have believed that they are the wise ones who know the ways of this world, and that if they do not guide their children, their kids then will go astray. And we want you to understand how backwards that thinking is.

These are genius creators who have just arrived from the Non-Physical, who are feeling empowered, and if they would be left to their own devices, they would not go astray. They would maintain worthiness; they would maintain their feeling of autonomy; they would maintain their feeling of Well-Being. They would thrive – unless it was taught otherwise to them. In other words, if others do not do something to change their vibration, they are in a vibration of thriving. And you see evidence of that, do you not? That is what he came forth to remind you. Do you not see evidence mostly of thriving and feeling good?

Jerry and Esther had the good fortune of meeting someone who founded a school (the Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts), and the premise of the school is that no one learns anything really, unless they have a sincere desire to learn it. They do not teach just for the sake of teaching. If you want to lean something and you express your desire to them, they will do everything they can to assist you in learning. But no one, no teacher, no faculty member, is even allowed, much less encouraged, to go to little Joseph and say, “Wouldn't you like to read this? Or “Wouldn't you like to learn about this?” It is all left to the desire of the child.

And the reason that Jerry and Esther are so excited about it is because it is the basis of what Abraham teaches. Unless you are asking, there is no answering that comes forth. And when you are asking, the answer is always coming forth.

Joseph is trying to help you and his teachers remember, first of all, that he gets to choose, and that whatever he chooses will come to him. He is not worried about not toeing the line and ending up in a place of not knowing anything. You might be, and his teacher might be, but his is not worried about that. He is still in that place of remembering that if he wants it, the Universe is going to deliver it. And he frankly cannot figure out what all of the fuss is about. Is that not what he keeps saying to you over and over again? [yep] “Why are you making a beg deal out of this? I'm all right. I'm doing all right.” You see?

It would be like meeting someone who was born clear minded and healthy, but that person is born into a community where most everybody limps, for whatever reason. And then their making fun of the way he walks because he is not yet limping. And him saying, “Hey, I know you're all limping and seem to be liking it, but I don't feel like limping and don't seem to need to.” and they all say, “Limping is what we do here. Learn to limp!” And he says, “I don't feel like limping.” So they just club him in the knee. (Fun!) and then he limps along. And then they all say, “Good. Good, Joseph.” We are not exaggerating that! That is a perfect, perfect analogy, you see.

What he is saying to all of you is, “I don't feel like limping.” Do not worry about him, and do not worry about what the teachers think about him.

Now, you have an Emotional Journey to take, though, correct? Because, think about it, he is who he is. And do you remember how much trouble you got into? You were just like him, and your mother went to a lot of trouble to try to make you different. Did it work? It just brought you grief and her grief, but it did not change your stubbornness, did it? So, you are not really eager to do that with Joseph.

So what choice do you have as you see him as this independent, genius creator that he is? Do you think that you could humiliate him into conformity? No, and you would not want to. Do you think you could punish him into conformity? That did not work with you. So what are your choices? Do you think that you can, in terms of an Action Journey, make him be different than he was born to be? You cannot, you see?

So you have some options here. You have this little rascal who is tuned in, tapped in, and turned on. And you can look for reasons to feel good about it, or look for reasons to feel bad about it. We do not think that the Emotional Journey you want to take is about changing him, because we think, like us, that you like him pretty much as he is. We think your problem is with the school system that does not understand what you understand or what Abraham understands or what Joseph understands. So would you say your Emotional Journey is about feeling better about their ignorance?

Guest: Probably.

Abraham: Is it feeling better about their ignorance? Or (oh, we are really getting somewhere here) is it about finding a way to get them to approve of you when you have a son like Joseph? (Ooooh, that is big, is it not?)

“So, here I've got this son who behaves in a non-conforming way. Brilliant, magnificent Being.” Do you want him to be different from that? Would you like him to be afraid? Would you like him to kowtow? Would you like him to do what they want him to do, or do you like him being independent?

So, the Action Journey, in terms of how Joseph is, is that you do not want to change, but how you feel about how they feel about Joseph is what you do want to change. So you have some choices. They are probably going to continue to disapprove of him – any you cannot make him behave in an approving way. So your choice is, they can disapprove of him and you can be all right with it, or they can disapprove of him and you can not be all right with it. Which would feel better to you?

Guest: Be all right with it.

Abraham: So now, offer some words toward that end. “I want to find a way to be all right, even when they're not all right, with how Joseph is.” Ramble a little bit, and see if you can find some relief in that.

Guest: I don't want to hear them say anything to me when I walk in the door.

Abraham: All right, that is making it worse.

Guest: I just want to pick him up from school and leave, so I don't have to see them.

Abraham: Not helping.

Guest: I want to stay active in the school, like I've been doing.

Abraham: “I like my role in school. I'd like to be able to influence them a little bit. I'd like them to understand the creative geniuses that they've got. I'd like them to understand that school is not jail; school's an environment where creativity can be expressed, and it should be able to be expressed in lots of different ways. And I would like to be able to help foster the creativity – not the conformity – in these kids. And born to me is a magnificently creative child who is lighting a fire within me to want to do that, and this could be fun.” That felt better. You did not say it, but it felt better when you heard it. In other words, make yourself feel better.

What is the goal? To feel better about how they feel about Joseph, who will not change. In other words, have you given up on the Action Journey? You had better, because you cannot change him. So, he is going to be like he is, and you can like it; or he can be like he is, and you can not like it. And which do you think is better for you, and which do you think is better for him?

Do you know that the magnificent genius creators of your world – every one of them without exception – were like Joseph when they were born and just never got over it? In other words, they did not yield. They allowed their creative juices to continue to flow. That is what you really want for him, right?

And a teacher who does not understand that... do you want that teacher to get in the way of that? [no] So, do you want to feel good about the teacher's misunderstanding, or do you want to feel bad about the teacher's misunderstanding?

Guest: I just don't want to care about what she thinks.

Abraham: Well, that is a good step. So now, you cannot change Joseph. Can you change the teacher? [no] You cannot, can you? All that effort in trying to get Joseph to be different is not going to amount to anything anyway. It is sort of all wasted effort, is it not? [yes] so why do you care? Because others make you care. The teacher calls you because the teacher wants to wield her power. The teacher wants to say to you, “I can't be happy when your son behaves this way, so you need to make your son behave differently.” And then you want to say to the teacher, “Well, I'm sorry. I can't feel happy when you behave the way you do about the way my son behaves. So you need to change the way you're behaving about my son so that I can be happy.”

And Joseph is the only wise one. He says, “Hey, I'm happy! You guys don't need to behave in any way to make me happy. You're out of my picture. You're a non-issue to me. I don't care what you think!” (He is the teacher, is he not?) So the Emotional Journey that you want to take is that you want to feel all right. You want to feel loving toward his teacher. You want to understand that this teacher is well-meaning. You want to say something to the teacher... now here, just practice this in your mind: “You know, I can't begin to tell you how nice it is to see how much you care about my little boy. It's so nice of you. So really, really, really nice of you. And I feel sorry for you because he won't listen to me either. But I've found that if I, sort of, just go with him, he's brilliant. And, as a teacher, I thought you might like to know that. And I also discovered that when I don't try to entrap him and take away his perception of freedom, he's the nicest little fellow in the world to get along with. But when I give him the impression, for even a moment, that he's not free, he fights for his life as if I'd pressed a pillow to his face. And I remember feeling that way, too. I bet you do, too.

“So I stopped putting the pillow over his face. I started flowing with the idea of his perceived freedom. And I think he's going to make us both proud if we just stay out of his way and let him be the genius that his is. And, by the way, thanks for all your trouble, and I appreciate everything you can teach him. I know he wants to learn from you. He tells me that he likes you. There are so many things you do that he enjoys. You're a good teacher. I know that you are. And I'm sorry that my little one won't conform – but I think the geniuses of the world never conformed.”

And with enough conversation like that, she will stop calling you in. when she finds out that she cannot wield her power to make you make him do something that he is not going to do, she will stop calling you in, and meanwhile, Joseph will thrive, and he will win her heart, and he will show her who his is. Yes.

Guest: Thank you.

- pages 258-266, The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent, by Abraham