Doubt is something that drives us nuts as parents but can both serve us and undermine us. If you didn’t doubt what you were doing as a parent, you wouldn’t be a conscious parent. We all know parents who know what is right and what is wrong and nothing moves them from that mark. Many of us had a parent like that. It’s no fun. Doubt keeps you alive and wondering. Doubt keep you growing and learning as a parent. You would be a robot without it. That said, doubt can also cause immobilizing fear when it is so loud that we question everything we do. When you have been brought up to believe that everyone else is right and you are wrong, doubt looms largely over ever action and decision. It can leave you disarmed in relationship with your child, who has an easy target and can wear you down quickly with arguments and demands. But doubt can be your friend and if you see it this way, you may not get so stuck with it. What you want Read more…
Category Archives: Everyday Parenting
My adult daughter was just home for three weeks in August before starting grad school in NYC. It was heaven for me. I relished every minute and spent too much time dreading the end of her stay. I’ve often thought, isn’t it crazy that we spend so many years in the trenches of parenting—and let me tell you she was not an easy child, those trenches were deep. She gave me a run for my money for soooo many years! But the learning I gained from parenting her—finding out what she needed and balancing it with what I needed, listening to her instead of reacting to her, allowing and trusting her to find her own way—has led to a very close, lovely adult relationship. It usually takes until kids are in their 20s before that kind of a relationship develops. Remember their brains aren’t fully developed until approx. 25! Anyway, if you really stick with your parenting, learning and growing with your child all along the way, finding out what their agenda is all about instead of only enforcing your Read more…
In the teachings of yoga, tension is experienced and released on three levels. The first and most obvious is the physical, next the emotional and finally the mental. In parenting it is the same thing. Our outward manifestations of tension, stress, worry, fear is in the physical—yelling, tone of voice, language, facial expressions. These physical aspects are underlined by the emotional—frustration, anger, exhaustion, defeat, hopelessness. But underneath it all is the mental—our perceptions, the ideas and beliefs we hold about ourselves and our children, the standards of behavior we buy into, our expectations. In order to effect change in our physical and emotional reactions to our children, we must address our mental state. How is it that you see and think of your children? Are they in general a pain in the neck? Do they never listen or do what they’re told? Do you doubt everything and think you don’t know what to do? Or do you feel confident in yourself, mistakes and all? Do you know that this too will pass? Are you able to drop into the moment Read more…
From the first moment of birthing a baby from the womb into the world of sudden cold, brightness and newness, we are in the process of letting go of these precious beings into their own lives. The management of the balance of holding safely and letting go is the art of parenting. It may be many years before you watch as your fully grown yet not at all fully formed young daughter or son look more to their futures without you than their past cuddled up next to you reading a book, clinging on tightly and fearfully as you leave them in someone else’s company, preferring to be with you over anyone else in the universe. Those days are often fraught with fear that this child will never be able to play by herself, will be too clingy to ever want to be independent. But when you have watched the whole process unfold—from not being able to go to the bathroom without a child attached to some body part to not knowing what goes on in their days, even weeks—you Read more…
Lessons our Children Bring Us
The more we are able to drop into the present moment with a child and accept whatever is being presented, the more we come to understand, appreciate, and cherish what makes this child unique and special. No matter what the outward behavior, it is the inward psyche, the core of who your child is that is reaching out to be heard, accepted, and appreciated.
It is a principle that I live and teach by that each child is born perfect. Each child comes to us with lessons to teach us that if we are open to learn, can help us grow as we help our children grow.
There may be behavioral worries, physical, emotional, or neurological issues our children present, but what matters most is the inner core of who they are and what they are bringing to this life. When we get too caught up in the external, we lose sight of the internal. Can you watch through the concerning behavior, penetrate the outward appearance that most of the world focuses on, to see Read more…
I just read a very powerful sentence in a wonderful book, The Gift of an Ordinary Day by Katrina Kenison. She said, “As soon as I stop wishing for things to be different, I am met by the beauty of what is….” How much time do we spend wishing for things to be different. I am one of those “the grass must be greener over there” people—always wondering “what if”. It keeps me out of and away from “what is”. No matter what the present moment brings—whether it’s a child screaming in rage, a car that won’t start, angry words from a friend or relative, too little money—if it is negative, we tend to place blame elsewhere, decide we are at fault, or shutdown in hopelessness. How hard it is to stop wishing for things to be different. what if we were able to say, “This is what I have to deal with right now. This is what is happening. Let me stay right here and pay attention. It’s ok if I feel angry, embarrassed, impatient, bewildered, disappointed, afraid. Imagine Read more…
I am beginning my second attempt at blogging with some thoughts about the anxiety and fears that arise in every day parenting. What am I supposed to do? How much should I push? When do I pull back? What is the right answer? When is this child ever going to learn….?
I don’t know whether or not it is human nature or whether we learn it in our chaotic world filled with addictions to performance and product and the “shoulds” of life, but most of us worry about what has been and what will come. The older I get the more I realize the importance of being in the moment. Yet still I fret over the “shoulds” of my life. It is amazing how much one simple “should” creates anxiety in an otherwise perfectly fine moment.
What I do know, even though I still struggle, is that the key to less stressful lives is to focus on the here and now, let go of the past, and stop overreaching for the future. What I have learned in the years of Read more…