A Child’s Inner and Outer Development
I came across this headline for a blog (Educating for Inner and Outer Development) on the website for Running River, an alternative school in Colorado as I was doing research for an education story. It captured my attention. The focus in education on learning and integrating new technologies, cramming our heads with ever-more knowledge and know-how from a very young age has perhaps created an imbalance that is making itself known in the harrowing statistics around pre-teen and teen mental health. Sadly, no matter how intelligent and capable our children are academically, no matter how much they have developed the skills to thrive in the modern world and mastered the technology to help them do so, they will not thrive if they have not simultaneously developed their inner strength and stability. In a sense, as we master outer technology, we must also master the inner technology we were born with that helps us to navigate our emotional, social and spirituals lives.
Although “inner development” may sound fluffy to many parents, it is indeed the foundation for everything, not the least bit fluffy or even alternative. We can only ask out children to function in their outer worlds without the strength of their inner world for so long. Eventually they crash and burn, which is what universities across the globe have been experiencing.
After reading the blog above I came across a second article (Raise Your Children to be Happy, healthy, Complete ) that gives extensive thoughtful advice about how to parent with our children’s inner lives in mind.
