Introduction: Using The Law Of Attraction And Children

There is a fine line when using the Law of Attraction.... Isn't that an annoying way to start this topic, or any, but in truth there is a fine line between helping a child to believe in "you can do anything" and setting realistic goals. There is a fine line between helping a child to be in the here and now, the real world rather than a fantasy world, and yet helping them to push the goal just a little past their comfort zone. The Law of Attraction is both fantasy and reality, which is why I am talking about a fine line. It is a fantasy (visualization) that you treat as a reality (imagining that you already have it.) It works because your unconscious does not know the difference between fantasy and reality. Neither does a young child. This is a complexity of using the Law of Attraction.

By the age of five or six, the school expects a child to know that they don't have a fairy godmother, they cannot fly, and dragons are not going to attack them after school. The school expects them to be ready to learn that firemen put out fires with water or fire extinguishers, and that they travel to the fire on a fire truck. Magic is not included. They expect the child to be ready to learn that bread is baked from a combination of yeast, water and flour, and that it rises without the requirement of a magic wand. They expect a child to be ready to learn that if they work at something, they can master it, and that they are not born knowing everything. Welcome to the world of reality and using the Law of Attraction. Their parents don't have a magic wand, or, do they?

"I can't do It!"

I am always distressed when I hear a child say, "I can't" when s/he has not even given it a real try. I will repeat that. I am hugely distressed when I hear a child say, "I can't" when the evidence is they haven't given it a fair try. Learning is a process, and sometimes a difficult process, so the question is, what gave him the idea that he should be able to do the task without going through the learning process? Magic and using the Law of Attraction? An omnipotent spirit is stuffed into a babies body and they are born to one or two human parents. It takes a while before they understand that they, and their parents, are working by new rules and the limitations must sometimes seem severe. It's better when they are using the Law of Attraction with their peers. What do I mean by that?

Did you ever watch children without parents or TV play? It's the same as when they learned to walk. The process is a natural one. Children see what their peers can do and then they compete with each other. One child runs faster, and another child tries to catch him.

Three children ride their bikes up the hill, and the other child who used to get off and walk up the hill, works harder than ever to stay on the bike the whole way to the top. This is using the Law of Attraction. He has visualized the process with himself on his bike, he feels what it will feel like and then he sets out to do it. If this child is two years younger, he will be the first of his age group to master the hill and will feel the confidence and success of having his peer group chasing after his accomplishments.

Five children are jumping off the rock quarry cliff into the soft green water below. The last child who is afraid of heights, masters his fear and follows his peers with his eyes tightly closed. He might land wrong and slap his side or his back, but the redness is a badge of courage. His peers oh and ah and congratulate him. The next time, he might keep his eyes open so that his landing is less painful.

Back to the child who says, "I can't." I have never heard a child say it to his peers. He says it to adults. The way in which the adult responds will determine how this child deals with difficulty for many years to come.

You have a choice. You can support your child's incompetence, or you can help him learn what it is to master a new task. When he is with his peer group, and sees them doing something that is hard, he sees that it is possible. When he is with you, he does not see how a "little guy" could possibly do what it is you want him to do. Your job is a little harder because you must give him both a desire to do something he doesn't want to do, and a vision of success.

This is using the Law of Attraction.

How do you instill the dream or desire to learn to do a Karate Kata? He will do it to please you if he knows that you expect it. How do you instill the dream or desire to learn to swim? This is easier, I think. You can make swimming look like a lot of fun if you play in the water. Play with your partner. Play with some older children. Your child will learn that your family swims, and will want to be part of the family. It will be worth the water in the face, and the choking from swallowing or snorting a little water and the burning sensation from too much water in the eyes. This is using the Law of Attraction. It will be worth it to get to share in that fun that he sees you having. If you sit on the beach with a book, and the older children in your family sit on the beach, your child might not learn to swim. It just won't be possible to instill in your child the vision of swimming out into the deep water, if his family isn't swimming out into the deep water. It will be very difficult to make the water look like fun if everyone else is sitting on the beach. This is using the Law of Attraction because without the vision, he won't do it.

Reading is the same process and requires using the Law of Attraction. If your child doesn't see you reading for pleasure, thus developing a vision, how will he come to think that it is pleasurable? You might be lucky. He might see a baby sitter read for pleasure or a neighbor, or a grandparent. But, if no one in a child's life is reading in the evening, he will only learn to read well enough to avoid embarrassment at school. Just as with the swimming, without a vision of reading for pleasure, he will have no desire. This again is using the Law of Attraction, unconsciously and in the negative.

Your fears and dreams will inflict themselves on your children. This is the Law of Attraction. If you are afraid that they will be hurt, and this is accompanied by a great deal of feeling, they will be hurt. If you are feeling joy at their discovery and mastery, they will continue to discover and to master new tasks. If you feel confident about their capability, they will feel confident and move forward to mastery with each dream.

The Pleasure Principle:

Children operate on the pleasure principle. This too is using the Law of Attraction isn't it? As Jack Canfield and Mike Dooley emphasize; it is only when you muster feeling, joy, hope or ecstasy, that your dreams are going to manifest. Children feel the greatest joy and satisfaction when their parents smile at them, but the smile has to be more than a smile with your mouth. You must smile with your eyes and with your heart to really touch a child.

You know this. When you have a dream, and family or friends encourage you, you can do anything, but when they discourage you, it's crushing. The Law of Attraction coach or master will tell you to stay away from your family, or at the least, don't talk with them about your dreams. It is difficult enough to maintain a vision of your abundant future. When people you care about are either making fun of it or telling you it's not realistic it makes it much more difficult. Napoleon Hill instructs you not to talk to anyone about your dream other than your master mind team. Wallace Wattles tells you not to talk to anyone at all about your visions!

Children follow this principle when using the Law of Attraction. They don't talk in the beginning. They learn to smile, and you smile back at them. They learn to move their arms and legs, and you smile back at them. They learn to sit up or to burp and you smile encouragement at them. They learn to stand and to walk and you make a huge big deal out of it and they are happy. They see you smiling and sitting and walking and they want to be just like you. They have learned how to be successful.

When you are so ready to support your child, how is it that he has already by three or four years old developed an attitude that there is something that is not possible?

It's the Little Things:

Your child is jumping on your bed, and someone tells him to get down, "or he'll get hurt." When your child who has recently learned to walk is coming down the stairs and someone screams or jumps up to help, he gets the idea that life is too dangerous for him. The first time he decides to carry his dish to the sink, or to wash his diaper in the dishwasher.... When he falls down and skins his knee, he is a little shocked, but little children do not localize pain very well, so the one or two year old doesn't feel the pain in his knee right away, and he does not know that endorphins are going to kick in and make the pain subside. If the reaction of nearby adults is one that makes him feel the pain and feel afraid, then he is learning to be afraid of challenge and of pain. This again is using the Law of Attraction to inhibit the child. If the reaction is one where he is praised for trying, and praised for being so brave, he will not be afraid of the next challenge, but will look forward to it. This too is using the Law of Attraction, for the positive outcome.

We are, almost every moment of every day, either giving a child a vision of a goal to strive for, or we are giving him a vision of a calamity he will also strive for. He will be using the Law of Attraction even when we wish he wasn't.

In all fairness, other people can hinder him. If the baby sitter is afraid that you will blame any bruises on her care or lack of care.... If another child's baby sitter is hysterical when he falls, your child might pick up that fear.

I have worked with fearful children, and it's not easy to undo the instillation of fear. A child trusts a parent more than a teacher, babysitter or therapist.

Undoing that fear is a challenge.

Partiallize the task:

I want to go into more about how to do this in the next article, but I will give you some hints so I don't leave you hanging. Climbing up onto a monkey gym might be frightening, but up one rung, and down, up one rung and down, up one rung and down is not. Always watch for the vision. What does the child get out of mastery. If he sees other children having fun climbing and sliding or jumping down, he will be motivated. If he sees other children getting hurt, he won't be.

Start there. Find a park where children have fun.

Doing a whole Karate Kata might seem overwhelming, but one step at a time, and then adding a second step and repeating until body memory cuts in, and then adding the third, and so on, is not overwhelming and the child is learning to break down tasks into smaller, bite sized pieces. This is an excellent training process.

The next time the child has something to learn he will have the belief that he is capable of learning. He will have an image of himself as someone who learns and is successful at complicated tasks.