Even before your baby’s arrival, you were likely to have read an extensive supply of parenting books, listened to many parent stories, and vowed to do everything your parents did the opposite.
You may have felt confident in your parenting decisions with your baby, who is not yet a challenge because they haven’t been born yet.
Then, your kid arrived, rapidly developed into a young person, and you suddenly caught up in the maelstrom of all they wanted and needed.
You may have joined a group of fellow parents to get assistance, which may have increased your pressure to make difficult parenting decisions.
Another parenting style you may have heard about recently is conscious parenting. What exactly are you looking for? Does it genuinely make a difference?
What is Conscious Parenting?
According to Eastern ideas and Western psychology, conscious parenting principles originate in ancient times. Tsabary claims that to be “conscious” or mindful is to be aware, which means we can better recognize the difference between responding to our children from our egos versus being attentive and calm.
In any situation, it’s all about maintaining focus and presence. As far as children being mentors who awaken us to our actuality, she argues, our children are teachers who bestow the gifts of self-awareness, self-expression, and self-belief.
Parents searching for immediate, real solutions may be turned off by Tsabary’s lack of case studies and examples.
She views awareness as a lifelong journey, an ongoing process of self-discovery and connection that occurs moment-to-moment and features a core element of trust, authenticity, and understanding in place of control, fear, and ego.
Fundamental Elements of Conscious Parenting
While conscious parenting has numerous parts, a few major principles include:
- Parenting is a partnership, in other words. It is a two-way transmission process rather than a one-way transmission technique. Children are unique individuals who can serve as teachers for their parents.
- The ability to detach from one’s desires and attachments is crucial to conscious parenting.
- Instead of pushing their children’s behavior, parents should consider their speech, expectations, and self-control.
- Instead of responding to negative outcomes, parents should plan and utilize reinforcement and praise to encourage the behavior.
- Looking at the overall process instead of fixing a temporary problem (like a temper tantrum) is vital. Preceding events and their more significant meanings can be traced back to the beginning.
- The most important aspect of parenting is the achievement of happiness in your child. In the process of overcoming obstacles, children can grow and develop. Your desires and ego should not stop your child’s development!
- To accept something means to accept and embrace it while it’s happening.
What Are the Advantages of Conscious Parenting?
A conscious parenting approach demands parents to engage in self-reflection and mindfulness regularly. This may be beneficial to more than simply your parenting.
Engaging in attentive self-reflection can provide benefits, including reduced stress and anxiety.
Daily meditation can also increase attention span. It can counteract age-related memory decline and even decrease blood pressure and enhance sleep.
Additionally, its supporters argue that conscious parenting can foster more respectful language use (by both parents and children) and greater communication.
One of the main ideas of conscious parenting is that children have something to teach adults. I believe this notion needs parents to speak to children with respect and communicate with them frequently.
When parents have frequent respectful talks with their kids, it boosts healthy, good relationship skills for children to utilize in all aspects of their lives.
A 2019 study also reveals benefits to adults engaging children with high-quantity and high-quality language in early life.
Researchers indicate that the conversations advocated by the conscious parenting approach may result in increased cognition, fewer indicators of hostility, and advanced development in children.
What Are the Drawbacks of Conscious Parenting?
For parents expecting a quick, clear-cut cure to parenting difficulties, conscious parenting may not be a perfect match for various reasons.
It may take a long time to gain the degree of self-reflection and internal control necessary to parent in the way asked for by this approach.
After all, followers of conscious parenting think it’s vital to release your baggage to allow your child to be true to their inner self, which won’t happen overnight!
Moreover, conscious parenting implies that parents allow their children to strive and fail. This, of course, implies that it may be messy and take time.
Supporters of conscious parenting feel that this time and effort are required for children to engage with fundamental topics that will define them.
However, for some parents, witnessing it may be challenging if they have a chance to prevent their child from experiencing failure or misery.
For parents who seek black-and-white answers to resolving problems with their children, conscious parenting can be troubling.
Conscious parenting does not promote an if A, then B approach. This type of parenting requires that adults cede considerable amounts of power to their children. Less dictation implies things may grow a little fuzzier and less predictable.
Instead of always having a clear path of action, conscious parenting urges parents to work with children to sort through challenges as they arise and stay in the moment.
Additionally, conscious parenting may provide distinct obstacles when raising younger children. There are occasions when, for safety, a parent needs to take action immediately.
It’s not always possible to pause and contemplate when your first responsibility is to keep your child safe.
Finally, for some parents, the core concepts behind the conscious parenting perspective can hit a nerve.
For example, one of the most controversial phrases in “The Conscious Parent” claims, “Parenting is not that tough or difficult once we become conscious because a mindful person is naturally kind and authentic.”
Likely, most parents have sometimes — if not daily — thought that parenting is, in fact, reasonably hard and often challenging.
When examining any parenting philosophy, there may be times when another philosophy makes more sense.
Conscious parenting may not be ideal for every situation or child, depending on other parenting ideas and individuals’ personalities.
Most parents rely on a blend of parenting theories when raising their children and base their actions on a complicated combination of factors.
Examples of Conscious Parenting
Are you confused about how this might play out in the actual world? There are a lot of people out there like you.
Here’s an incident that occurred as an example of conscious parenting. Imagine that your 5-year-old has gotten hold of the scissors and been left alone (a nightmare for every parent).
The men decided to have a barbershop session and practiced their new haircutting techniques on their heads. You merely stepped into the room and saw the results for yourself.
Breathe
Instead of responding in fury or fear, calmly determining a suitable punishment, or shirking responsibility, you would relax and center yourself as a parent who is mindful of their child. Keep the scissors out of reach.
Reflect
Before talking to your child about this experience, reflect on the triggers and feelings it evoked. You’re probably worried about what other parents will think when they see your child—put that worry to rest.
Establish Firm Boundaries
As a parent, you must set boundaries for your children’s behavior (especially when requesting respectful communication).
If your child wanted to use the scissors before, and a parent was present because it was for the child’s safety, then this is a great time to discuss the boundary violation that occurred.
It would be helpful if you also considered what you can do in the future to help your child, including putting the scissors in a spot where they cannot reach on their own. This isn’t about bad hair.
Accept
This level of conscious parenting urges you to embrace your child’s hair for where it is right now. Don’t waste your time mourning the hairstyles of the past.
It’s time to work on separating your ego from your identity. In addition to allowing your child to work on their hair, you could work with them to design a new haircut if they wish.
Conclusion
If you believe in conscious parenting, everything in this post can influence your beliefs. This could be the opposite of what you think.
Even if you feel as though you’re entirely alone, you’re not. Because there is no “one size fits all” approach to parenting, it is crucial to study different parenting styles. It might come in handy someday.
You might answer the phone next time you serve as a parent group leader.
