The answer is always LOVE (or sometimes, "42"!)

The answer is always LOVE (or sometimes, "42"!)
My philosophy is LOVEISM...

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

How do we COMMUNICATE to the YOUTH with INTEGRITY?


As you may recall, I have a long history working (and PLAYING) with CHILDREN (*on several continents, from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds, I might add.) I have been a preschool teacher, a primary and secondary school teacher, university professor, manager of an orphan village, ESL Instructor, private tutor, managed several different youth groups, and then some! My policy (in and out of the classroom) has always been to SPEAK to CHILDREN as EQUALS. 
Yes, this Class photo is ridiculous! (South Africa)

This means I speak to CHILDREN the same way I speak to ADULTS.  This means I call CHILDREN out on their BULLSHIT…especially if they are 3 years old! I don’t care if you are my Grandmother, Nelson Mandela, a 5 year old, the Dalia Lama, or a dog…I speak to everyONE as an EQUAL, in my AUTHENTIC VOICE.  I feel that anything less than speaking MY TRUTH (*which may very well be different from yours and lucky for me, I am OK with that!) in my AUTHENTIC VOICE lacks INTEGRITY and smells of EGO. Therefore, I find it very disconcerting that I noticed during my stay in Ojai, when I speak my truth to CHILDREN, it sometimes upsets their so-called Guardians!  (We punish our CHILDREN when they do not speak the truth …but are WE, as ADULTS, speaking AUTHENTICALLY to our kids?!)
Until we had a facility for all our ORPHANS, in rural South Africa, we housed them at the local hospital.


For example, I had NO IDEA that the youths I was sharing a Rosh Hashanah meal with were enrolled in some kind of “confidential” drug addiction treatment program (*how would I KNOW? Especially, if it is “confidential”?!)  Therefore, when they started asking me a million questions about Burning Man and drugs over my kosher meal, well, I answered honestly that I believed SACRED PLANT MEDICINES (like Ayahuasca, Iboga, Mushrooms, and such) can be very therapeutic and transformational tools for healing addictions (*and there happens to be A LOT of scientific evidence to support this –but don’t listen to me, do your OWN HOMEWORK!)

I told these very curious youths they are currently using hallucinogenic plants (SACRED PLANT MEDICINES) to treat prisoners in Brazil with astonishingly positive results and in addition to the studies that are confirming this all over the world, I am regularly meeting people who have independently overcome heroine addictions and such with cannabis oil treatment and other holistic healing methods.  Shortly later, I was called aside from a “Guardian” and asked very politely NOT TO DISCUSS DRUGS with these CHILDREN who are currently “in treatment”.  Things that make me go hmmmm…how do you expect to address drug addictions without discussing drugs and all the OPTIONS?!!!
While working for Costa Rica Outward Bound, I got my MAUI (SCUBA) certification with the GIRL SCOUTS of AMERICA 


I share this little story to OPEN UP the DISCUSSION on HOW we can better COMMUNICATE with OUR CHILDREN/the YOUTH -- as EQUALS -- with INTEGRITY. I welcome ALL SOULutions!   Thank you! 

This is Kelly N Patterson, aka "The Goofy Guru" reporting from Ojai, California 
One of my besties from my work with Bien du Mujer, en La Carpio (the slums of) Costa Rica