For some parents, preserving innocence means protecting their children from exposure to sexual, violent, or adult content until they reach their teenage years. Others aim to keep their children in an imaginative, childlike world, refraining from speaking to them as adults or explaining complex realities, thus allowing them to create their own imaginative stories.
While the intention may be to provide children ample time to grow up and transition to adulthood, potential repercussions can arise when we deliberately withhold information from them. By doing so, we may shape a skewed perspective of reality and fail to equip them with tools to handle challenging situations, toxic relationships, or encounters with unkind individuals. This approach might also hinder their natural developmental markers, which depend on a diverse range of social interactions beyond home, school, and community, potentially leaving them feeling socially awkward.
If we don’t expose them to different forms of communication like humor, sarcasm, and debate, we risk limiting their social acuity and their ability to engage in healthy banter and communicate effectively in adult relationships, including professional and customer service contexts. While we may believe we’re preserving their childhood and preparing them for the real world, true innocence is not about maintaining a state of childlike naiveté.
Instead, true innocence is the capacity to experience life, including its challenges, with JOY, NON-ATTACHMENT, and CURIOSITY. Children arrive in this world with an inherent wisdom, unburdened by the worries and fears that adults carry. They approach life with a lighter heart, desiring joyous experiences.
If our goal is to preserve this innocence in our children, our best strategy involves transforming ourselves to view life, relationships, and challenges from a lighter, happier, and more curious perspective. The way we explain things to them, along with the compassion evident in our responses, can shape positive internal narratives. This approach empowers them to feel in control of their path and fosters street smarts.
In short, preserving innocence means teaching our children to interpret life events with an innocent and curious heart. Thus, if they encounter challenges like death, job loss, or breakups in the future, they can perceive these events neutrally, understand them, learn from them, and continue moving forward in a positive way. This is how we instill true innocence – it’s not something we can preserve, but rather, it’s a way of being.