Dr. Shefali argues that parents often create the very problems they see in their children through fear and control. When you heal your own anxiety and wounds, you stop projecting them onto your kids and can finally see them as whole.
Chapters
One of the most common complaints parents have about their kids is that they are bad. Kids are constantly being labeled bad. When they don't get good grades, they don't listen to us. They don't finish their chores. The list is endless. We believe that it's our job as parents to fix our kids. As if they are toys or puppets that are broken and need fixing. What if I told you that your kids are not bad, but something else? Some bad kids are just screaming for attention, pleading for us to understand them. They're saying to us, help me, I'm struggling here. And some kids, they're not being bad. They're just being kids. Forgetful or tired, disorganized, stressed. And some kids are being bad because they just don't know any other way. It's time for us parents to wake up to our own bad behavior. Maybe it's not our kid's fault at all. Maybe it's us, the parent who is so fearful, so controlling, so anxious that the kid has no choice but to follow our bad behavior. This is what I teach in conscious parenting. That it's almost never the kid who's being bad and almost always the parent who's co creating the kid's behavior. No parent likes to hear this of course, but in order to raise our children consciously, we need to make a shift in how we look at them. I really believe that it's only when we parents stop focusing on our kids bad behavior and instead focus on our own inner brokenness that we will start understanding them better. Instead of expecting our kids to be perfect, we understand them for their humanity. We connect to them for who it is they are and not for who it is we think they should be. The work begins and ends with us parents understanding and healing our own inner brokenness. Remember, your child is not broken. They are whole. They are complete. They are worthy. When you stop looking at them through the lens of your own inner brokenness, it's only then that that you will see them for their glory. Suddenly, your children will appear before you as they always were. Whole, complete and worthy. It is only when we parents give our children unconditional love and worth that we allow them to be their authentic selves and free them to live their own destiny. Hi, I'm Dr. Shefali. If you want to learn how to be a more calm, conscious parent, then I invite you to join me on this upcoming masterclass with mindvalley. I hope to see you there.
