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Tips and resources for mental well-being, emotional resilience, and creative expression for the whole family
Parenting advice these days is like… whoa. Am I right?
Our boys need to be empathetic and respectful. Our girls need to be empowered and confident.
Not too much screen time but enough exposure to technology. Schedules, no schedules, co-sleeping, crib sleeping, breastfeeding.
The endless recommendations are enough to make you say, “Screw it all.” and plunk your kid in front of Netflix while you hide in the bathroom with some chocolate.
(I may or may not speak from experience.)
Anyway, according to some experts, conscious parenting techniques may just be the answer to all our parenting conundrums.
When we exhibit conscious parenting we take the time to understand our reactivity triggers and allow our children the time and space to experience their emotions.
In her latest book, The Awakened Family, Dr. Shefali Tsabary shares the perspective of how we have the opportunity to allow our children to awaken and raise us to higher levels of awareness.
She encourages parents to view their children as mirrors, reflecting our default parenting strategies imprinted from our own upbringings.
“Moment after moment after moment, your child acts as your mirror,” she explains. “Through every interaction you have with your child, you are really interacting with yourself. Every way you relate to your child is a reflection of how you relate to your own inner world.” HuffPo
Dr. Tsabary along with other peaceful parenting experts give us the perspective of experiencing our children for who they rather than correcting their behavior from a place of fear.
She explains in The Awakened Family that many of us operate from underlying fears that our children will not be successful, accepted, and happy.
She challenges these beliefs by explaining that our children are already happy and okay with who they are. It’s their fear of our disappointment and disapproval that uproots those beliefs.
According to conscious parenting experts, the more we can embrace our children for who they are as people, and allow ourselves to view them as mirrors revealing to us our own strengths and weaknesses, the more peaceful our parenting journeys will be.
This is the foundational belief of the work that I do with the families I serve.
At the start of the coaching journey, we evaluate expectations and commit to a process of shifting from parenting from a place of expectations to one of setting intentions.
3 steps to shift from expectations to intentional parenting
1. Reflect on the expectations you have of yourself as a parent and those that you hold for your child.
2. Use an intention-setting guided meditation to frame your thinking moving forward.
3. Journal about the relationship you intend to create with your child and how you want to show up as a parent.
My clients receive a detailed workbook to guide them through the process of these three steps and it becomes a powerful catalyst for moving forward.
From there the work of embracing connection within the “ordinary” moments of parenting begins.
This is where the magic happens.
It’s in the ordinary moments of when they get up in the morning and when we help them brush their teeth and when they bend down to tie their laces, and when they stand up straight and look at themselves in the mirror. It’s all these moment-to-moment instances that call for connection. — Dr. Shefali Tsabary
Get started connecting in the ordinary moments using the strategies in my Calm & Connected Mini Guide!