Really !!!!! What’s there to learn about parenting ? Doesn’t it comes naturally !!!!!
Why should one revisit parenting, more so for teenagers?
Revisit parenting!!!!
What’s wrong with this style, one we all have been raised with?
Do we at any point feel that our teenager is not reaching up to his/her potential besides all other measures?
How do we parent a teenager – by becoming friends with them but isn’t that door closed long back when we raised them with anarchy, when we overruled their spirit due to our belief’s and past conditioning.
Our teenagers know our game so well by now, that they develop strategies to navigate around us. Few of them rebel, few retreat to their shell, few play smartly according to their parent’s demands and needs on superficial level waiting for their time away from home. All this sound to brutal and we defend our case with earnest parenting of accomplishments of our children.
There is nothing wrong with accomplishments but attachment to accomplishments, definition of a relationship based on accomplishments is very shallow.
Connection with your teenager, to be his guiding mentor us what we should aim for and with our earlier anarchical ways of parenting young children, we need to work harder on reinstalling these connections.
Teenagers require maximum boundaries around their time and work as this age comes with tsunami of distractions and technology hasn’t made it any easy for us.
Studies show that most of habits like drugs, alcohol, gamble, smoking etc., all have its root in teenage years.
These years are the most crucial years in social, emotional, intellectual growth and our teenagers need a listening ear, an empathic heart, a trusting friend in us.
To undo our past parenting ways, we need to look deep within us and pick our battles very carefully. We need to weigh as what is important, our teenager’s feelings or world’s definition of something, our judgement of situation based on our beliefs or listening to our teenager with empathetic ear, imparting our advice/wisdom to him or trusting his journey with compassion and support.
Most of the teenagers need support in laying boundaries around their time and work, around their social engagements and self growth.
Rather then approaching them with fear based energy, with fear of what will happen to them in future if this continues, how about if we approach them with open mind and heart, try to understand his emotions around it, come to a common ground, negotiate (all in connection with the child, coming from neutral energy rather then with an agenda) and then come on common ground, with giving him space and wings to experience his journey.
It’s a constant dialogue between our expectations, our agenda for him, our beliefs, our conditioning and being present with him in the moment, with present with the neutral energy and approaching the situation AS-IT-IS.
How DO we do that? Well, to let go of first thought which comes to our mind (first reaction) which arises from our deep down conditioning and belief, we need to be aware of it and pause. Pause to understand the cause of this first reaction.
Moat of the Parents say that if we pause, then shall we let our children do whatever they want.
Please understand that pause id not inaction, not passivity. Its to reconnect with our authentic being rather then reacting from Ego or belief’s.
It’s a consistent awareness and effort on parents thinking process ,which helps in unlocking his true self and embrace world around with his authentic energy.
During our THINKING HIVE & ONE ON ONE SESSIONS, we help parents deconstruct their emotional entangled state around their children.
With peeling of layers of conditioning and with revisiting our agenda and our movie for our children, we try to reach a space, welcoming our children and facilitating them to reach their higher self.
I will continue to post blogs on steps to take, layers to peel, stages to proceed to reach level of awareness , facilitating our children reach their highest self.
See you at the next blog post .