One of the major milestones in my Buddhism practice came about in 2013.

By way of background, my son came to the US in mid 2012.  He was nine years old, didn’t speak English and was spoiled by his grandparents in Thailand.  I made an assessment (judgement) of him based on my limited interactions with him when I spent time with him in Thailand.  I explained to my wife that I had to take a hard stance on his behavior and it’s going to rough.  When he came here, I started to set the rules based on his behavior. It was good when he started to speak English.  Once he started to understand how to speak and understand, I had to lay down the law when it came to lying, tantrums and other unwanted behavior.  I had an idea of how he should be behaving and the effectiveness of my methods.  Needless to say there was a lot of fighting.  My wife wasn’t happy with the way I was treating him.  A couple of times I wanted to give in.  In 2013 I went to some weekend retreats at KPY up in Redwood Valley.  They were short but intense, but I like the fact that I received a lot of attention and the group was small.  One day in the group I was talking to the monk about how difficult it was to raise my son.  He said to me that the basic problem with my method was that it was based on my “expectations” of how my son should behave and my belief that my methods of teaching him were correct and would work.  This is when the light came on!  I said to myself, that I don’t know how a (then) 10 year old should behave, and even if I did, I didn’t know how HE should behave because everyone grows differently.  He helped me see my impermanence in how I raised my son.  I now know that there is no one method to raise my son.  I have to try, reassess and not be afraid to change or admit I’m wrong.  I’m still raising my son as he is only 13 now, but our relationship has gotten better.  I don’t get so mad as I use to.  Yes there are still issues, but I teach more by example now and reason with him.  I don’t expect him to “get it” now.