A Quote by Alain de Botton
Parents become very good at not hearing the explicit words and listening instead to what the child means but doesn't yet know how to say: 'I'm lonely, in pain, frightened' - distress which then unfairly comes out as an attack on the safest, kindest, most reliable thing in the child's world: the parent.
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The traditional paradigm of parenting has been very hierarchical, the parent knows best and very top down. Conscious parenting topples [this paradigm] on its head and creates this mutuality, this circularity where both parent and child serve each other and where in fact, perhaps, the child could be even more of a guru for the parent .... teaching the parent how the parent needs to grow, teaching the parent how to enter the present moment like only children know how to do.
Training moments occur when both parents and children do their jobs. The parent's job is to make the rule. The child's job is to break the rule. The parent then corrects and disciplines. The child breaks the rule again, and the parent manages the consequences and empathy that then turn the rule into reality and internal structure for the child.
The trouble with most problem-solving books for parents is that they start with the idea that the child has a problem. Then they try to tell us how to fix the child, or else, after blaming the parent, they suggest how we can fix ourselves.
Compared to other parents, remarried parents seem more desirous of their child's approval, more alert to the child's emotional state, and more sensitive in their parent-child relations. Perhaps this is the result of heightened empathy for the child's suffering, perhaps it is a guilt reaction; in either case, it gives the child a potent weapon--the power to disrupt the new household and come between parent and the new spouse.
Any statements from the parents may seem like criticism or judgment by the child or adolescent. It's very important that the child or adolescent does most of the talking and the parent asks questions curiously to understand the perspective of the child or adolescent.
When a child or adolescent is troubled, the most important thing for the parent to focus on may very well be their relationship with their child or adolescent. Parents need to do whatever they can to make sure the relationship is strong.
Think of the universe as a benevolent parent. A child may want a tub of ice-cream and marshmallows, but a wise parent will give it fruits and vegetables instead. That is not what the child wants, but it is what the child needs.
The colicky baby who becomes calm, the quiet infant who throws temper tantrums at two, the wild child at four who becomes seriousand studious at six all seem to surprise their parents. It is difficult to let go of one's image of a child, say goodbye to the child a parent knows, and get accustomed to this slightly new child inhabiting the known child's body.
I get so sick and tired of hearing people gripe about what their parents did to them. You know what your parents did to you? The best thing they could do. The best thing they knew how, the only thing in many cases that they knew how. Nobody has set out maliciously to hurt their child, unless they were psychotic.
There is nothing that compares to the bonding between parent and child in that first year of life. Study after study shows how both parents being involved in the early weeks and months of a child's life is good for the child's development.
The parent is the strongest statement that the child hears regarding what it means to be alive and real. More than what we say or do, the way we are expresses what we think it means to be alive. So the articulate parent is less a telling than a listening individual.
There are no words to describe the pain of burying a child, and specifically there is no word to label their new, lifelong status. If you lose a spouse, you are a widow; if you lose a parent, you are an orphan. But what about when you lose a child? How do you name something you cannot comprehend?
No parent ought to punish a child except with a view to the child's good. And in order to do good to a child through his punishment, a parent must religiously refrain from punishing him while angry.
Conscious parenting is a new paradign shift in the way we look at our roles as parents. It's turning the spot light away from fixing the child and managing the child, obsession with all things that have to do with the child and the child centric approach and really focusing on the evolution of the parent. It about fully understanding that unless the parent has raised themselves to a certain level of emotional integration and maturity, they will really not be able to do true service to the child's spirit.
To be a good enough parent one must be able to feel secure in one's parenthood, and one's relation to one's child...The security of the parent about being a parent will eventually become the source of the child's feeling secure about himself.
I'm a mom... and I'm learning this being a parent, sometimes your child can be such a reflection of who you are. And I have to figure out when it is my ego that dictates how I parent and when it is what I think is best for my child.
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