Who REALLY Needs Parenting?
04 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
in Parenting Tags: child, coach educator, creativity, daughter, guidelines, love, mother, parenting, son
The one question I most often hear from parents is, “How do I keep the sense of wonder, awe, innocence, and creativity alive in my child?”
From my experience as a mother, educator, family coach and working with children most of my life, I have observed, and become consciously aware of how our conditioned values and beliefs around parenting quickly diminish that innate spark and divine light that we so want to keep alive in our children. And worse, what we are so desperately trying not to do to our children, we are living and doing to ourselves. We have forgotten how to let our own light emerge and shine. We have forgotten that our sense of well-being is paramount if we want to set the stage for our children. We have become slaves, thinking we are supposed to sacrifice our wants, desires, and inner soul’s sole purpose to honor our ‘programmed’ role of meeting the needs of everyone else. Yes, we are now labeled a parent, and by whose guidelines are we living out that role? This is where we as parents, as well as teachers, grandparents, and caregivers, must look deeply within our hearts, and discover what it is we want and need for ourselves to be the best role model we can for our children. Our children will emulate us! If we have given up the one thing we want to keep alive in our children, then it is time to rethink, and re-envision what our values and role is as a parent.
How often do you ask your child to do something you are not willing to do? Does that remind you of the old adage, “Do as I say, not as I do?” How often does that end in a power struggle? Are you expecting your child to do things that reallly never made sense to you? Are you projecting your missed or unfulfilled desires onto your child?
I invite you to contemplate these words of wisdom from Kahlil Gibran…you are beginning to break a “biological contract!!”
“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls.
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.”
