If you’ve been reading the blog for a while now – and following along on Instagram – then you know that during the last 18 months I have entered a crazy zone. The transition from one child to three in under three years came as a shock to me and, almost literally, turned my world upside down. I didn’t know what I was doing anymore, I often felt scared and I was not feeling like me anymore. Life became a chaos and I got lost in it. In bed every night I would lie awake thinking about one thing: how the fuck am I supposed to be a parent to my kids? It’s funny how some answers just come and find you. I got invited to a Conscious Parenting workshop. It hasn’t changed my life. It’s made it better.
In preparation for this blog post, which I will try to keep as short as possible – it’s a vast topic but definitely worth your time, I promise- over the last few months I have read books on consciousness, listened to podcasts by the author of The Conscious Parent , the amazing Dr Shefali Tsabary, clinical psychologist and wisdom teacher, I took notes from articles on natural consequences and attended a four-part workshop with Alexia Vlahos Kolokassides, life coach and conscious parenting advocate.
What I intially thought was a bunch of new age shite turned out to give life-changing advice. The more I dug into the topic, the more sense it made. I was fixated on getting answers on how to get Georgie, 8, to listen to me or how to get James, 3, to tidy up his toys and how to get Danny, 17 months to stop biting. You know, the usual shit we parents google in the middle of the night, losing sleep over.
What I discovered while searching for those answers through conscious parenting was that all this time I have been looking in the wrong place. I was looking for quick fixes and that’s just all kinds of wrong.
I was ultimately looking for ways to get my children to listen to me because parenting has become a power struggle between us and the kids. Parenting boosts egos which means that you always have to win. How awful is that? The sad truth is, we actually have no clue how to be parents because most of the time we act like kids, yelling and hurting. We have to grow up before we can parent anyone.
Think about it. I thought about the expectations I have from my children. And how many of those expectations have anything to do with what they want to do and what I want to do. I want them to be quiet, I want them to be good, I want them to be educated and successful, I want them to be happy, I want them to listen to ME. I own them, I’m the parent so of course I know what I’m doing. They were given to ME so of course I know what to do. The universe has indeed given them to me but that doesn’t mean that I get to manipulate and mold them how I see fit. By disciplining, labeling, blaming and shaming and expecting. Through parenting we want OUR needs met. Not those of our kids. To add insult to injury, by doing all this we are telling our kids that they are not good enough and ultimately we would like them to change.
I am resisting everything my kids are trying to teach me. You know, the untainted souls that came into my life, pure and true and conscious to the world around them.
So what is conscious parenting? It’s about connecting with your kids, communicating better, easing the stress and inserting some kindness. And it’s about forgetting everything you know about traditional parenting. We’ve been doing it wrong for a long time. All our expectations and beliefs stem from someone else’s fears and lack. That someone being our parents. I love my parents, I spend time with them, almost daily because I actually like them but they’ve made mistakes and so have you and so have I. That’s ok. As long as we learn from them, recognize them, accept them and move on.
One of the key points to understand about conscious parenting is that you must let go of your expectations. Do you know how freeing that is? And fucking scary. But it works! As I said, I have been practicing for a few months now and I know for a fact that once I stop expecting, magical things happen. It’s not easy to do and you definitely can’t do it all the time because your mind is telling you otherwise. But just being aware of when you have expectations and being able to acknowledge the issue you have is another huge point about conscious parenting. Recognise the trigger. You know when you’re being awful to your child, you know when you’re trying to control, when there’s a power struggle. Stop next time and ask yourself: what is this about? I lost my patience with my three year old because he wasn’t putting his shoes on. I would be late to our appointment and then I would get stuck in traffic. But what the hell has that got to do with my three year old? And since when is it ok to burden our children with our issues? We do that. A lot. We blame.
Conscious parenting does not mean you are living without boundaries. And here’s where natural consequences come into play. Another fascinating topic. Again forget your traditional parenting that includes punishment and discipline. When you discipline you are teaching them to be afraid of what will happen if they don’t do as they were told but it will teach them nothing about what’s right and wrong. When you allow natural consequences to occur you are allowing them to make mistakes and ultimately teach responsibility. I read a story about how one mother had to take her son his lunch everyday because he would forget to pack it. She was told to allow him to see the consequence of his action. Apparently he now packs AND makes his lunch. I’ve tried it on a smaller scale and while it’s hard when the kids are really working me up, I have avoided many confrontations by not being so quick to react based on anger.
Natural consequences do not apply when they interfere with the rights of others, when your child is in danger and when a child’s behaviour does not seem like a problem to them but it effects their health and well-being. That applies to general hygiene, homework, eating junk food and glued to a screen all day. And when that screen time battle comes you just say: This is not for your highest good. Just as it is not for you either so modeling good behaviour yourself should always be thought of when disciplining our children.
I especially like the focus of conscious parenting on kindness. I feel we forget about kindness. Remember how kind you felt towards your child when they were born? Remember thinking you were going to burst with love? That’s how we need to make our children feel everyday. They must know that they are enough, that we love them unconditionally whether they walk down the path we’ve shown them or they take another. It’s OK if they are not successful, the only reason you think they aren’t is because of your conditioned beliefs of what successful means. Let it go. Allow them to be who they are meant to be.
I wanted to finish this long essay with an act of kindness between me and my kids: Georgie refused to go outside and play with James who kept calling his name from the window. It wound me up and I punished him. I told him he was not allowed to go outside. He did anyway. I was about to barge after him but I didn’t. I paused and heard him speaking in a kind tone to James and engaging with him. I opened the door, walked up to him, gave him a big kiss and told him how much I love him for being kind to his brother. The smile on his face will always light up my soul.
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Thank you to Alexia Vlahos Kolokasides for giving me this opportunity and helping me stay grounded through her workshop and videos. Much love. Find out more about Alexia and what she does by visiting her website or finding her on Facebook. You can also e-mail her at alexia@rippleeffect.com.cy or call her on 99-548085
And here is something special for you…
Alexia is offering all you lovely readers a 5-part Master Class on How to do conscious parenting in the modern home. Click on this link, enter your e-mail address and over the course of 5 days you will receive a 20-minute video recording to your inbox for FREE!!!
Other links worth looking into:
This post on natural consequences has great examples on how to implement them.
If you want to find out more on consciousness and how to be more present I recommend Eckhart Tolle’s books and his 10-chapter podcast with Oprah, which is a huge eye-opener.
