January 31st, 2022
Conscious Parenting – Is It Just Another Fad?
Hello parents! I am so excited to officially launch my first blog. It’s been a long time coming to get here, but my goal is to provide you with relevant and to the point parenting and conscious living topics. I know firsthand how little time you have as a parent, so I will do my best to provide you with useful information in digestible amounts.
For this first blog, I thought it would be appropriate to address if and why we should care about conscious parenting in the first place. Is it just another fad parenting style? Well, I gave up my comfortable six figure salary because it changed my life profoundly. I believe it has the potential to make a positive and lasting impact not only in the parenting landscape, but our society as a whole. It is big. The more I learn about it, the more I see it as a clear game changer.
What is the difference between conscious parenting and regular parenting?
Most of us grew up with the traditional parenting paradigm. This is where the parent is in charge (hierarchical nature) and punitive punishments are administered to control kids. Unfortunately, this has been such a dominant way of parenting and for so long, culture makes us second guess our self if we do not use these strategies to get our kids in line. Then there are more contemporary approaches that started to emerge in the last decade. With these methods, parents are careful not to get angry and use the latest parenting strategies to try and manage kids.
The problem with both of these approaches is that the effect is usually short lived. It’s no time at all before your’e dealing with the same issue, maybe disguised differently, or even a more severe form of it. Neither one of these approaches get to the root of the behavior because it only focuses on the child and their behavior. Therefore, only a portion of the issue is being addressed, not the whole dynamics that underlie the behavior. This is why conscious parenting is an important piece to positive parenting strategies.
You are the missing piece.
With Conscious Parenting, the focus is on you, the parent. It provides you with the power to create the right conditions for your child to naturally change and evolve towards their best and truest self. The next logical question than is, “how do I create these conditions?” The first step is always about looking inward and getting to know your fears and triggers. The good news is, our children give us many opportunities to identify these! The challenge is in deconstructing each time we are triggered to better understand our past conditioning behind it.
This first step takes courage because in many ways it is a lot easier to focus on trying to change our kid’s behavior versus engaging in a process of self-understanding. I often remind myself that there is more than one kid in the room, and that other kid struggling here is me, or the part of me that is overwhelmed or afraid. This is where the name “Raising Parents Coaching” came from. As you raise your kids, you also have to think about raising yourself. Mistakes are part of the process as we learn and grow with our kids. But it truly can be a beautiful journey of self-discovery and self-compassion as we liberate ourself from past hurts and cultural conditioning.
