Evolved Parenting

New age, hippie and hopefully, it works.

As any parent would know, our children do not come with manuals, and parenting is quite a subjective matter to most. Many still choose to resist good advice, as to them perhaps, parenting and nurturing should come naturally. However, I am of the feeling that parenting and nurturing are highly individualistic and that we may become better at developing better connections with our children if we opened ourselves.

Be present …not just there

Let me explain. Many of us were brought up in an era whereupon our parents' rules were rarely questioned or discussed. Some children would adhere to keep the peace whilst some chose to rebel and act out away from parental scrutiny. When the child perhaps failed academically, parents would never blame themselves, but mostly the child and his or her choice of peer acquaintances. As we have rapidly moved away from this stale parenting style, many gurus are advocating for new-age parenting skills. This demands parents are asked to help themselves first, are required to check in with their feelings and emotions first to avoid project their fundamental lack on their children. In other words, how can a parent become a good one if he or she has not truly developed a healthy relationship with himself or herself? If we parents fail to tend to our needs and if we fail to truly listen to ourselves, can we expect to meet our children’s needs and be present for them?

Being present is not an easy skill to master. For starters, most of us do not quite understand the subtlety of ‘Being Present.’ Being present has so many connotations, and it requires us to be ‘100 Percent’ available, authentic and in the moment with our children or loved ones. Not an easy thing as our minds are often functioning in ‘busyness’ and too often we are impatient to get on with our day, whilst hiding our true selves to the World. Is that something that society has formatted us to become and can we unformat and reboot ourselves to develop this subtle skill? Being present can create better connections with our parents, our loved ones, our partners and definitely with our children. Being connected to our children makes them better equipped to build strong connections with their peers and hopefully with their future partners. Nurturing connections make us much better at nurturing stronger partnership and relationships as we learn to develop an authentic connection with ourselves.

Anger and Aggression…

Anger issues often stem from stifled communication or the ability effectively communicate our needs. Aggression becomes the natural means of expression and the same goes for passive-aggressive rhetorics, or the need to challenge people, act confrontational and be continuously defensive. Is our tendency to act in aggression been shaped by numerous wars over centuries has it become engrained into our DNA or genetic make-up? Conceptually, if our immediate childhood environment functioned in a passive-aggression, aggression could become a systematic way of expression. If during our childhoods anger and constant criticism were the only way of expression, do we have a duty to to heal ourselves from their consequential negative effects? To put it bluntly, we have a duty to heal, before we become parents and quite possibly, most of us do not, and will emulate the teachings of our parents.

A child acting out is always a cause of concern, especially for new parents. A tantrummy 16-month-old is unable to express his needs, fears or frustrations. Often we were told to ignore the child’s cries or to raise our voices to silence the tantrums. Placing a child on the naughty step perhaps has the long term effect of silencing the child later on in life. Teenagers are by nature grumpy and aloof as they are on their journey of self-discovery. However, a secure teen will feel comfortable expressing his or her needs perhaps if he or she was not silenced as a child. When a young child tears and fears are comforted with love, that child is likely to become lovingly expressive later in life. Rather than resorting to aggressive stances or function in passive aggression would definitely help in building lasting, loving and peaceful connections.

Quest for love, peace and harmony…

Finally, I truly believe that if we have not learnt to love ourselves, we cannot love others. Love is not something we say, love is something we do. Whether we choose hedonism or stoicism is a matter of personal choice, but I do believe in cultivating long-lasting relationships and partnerships. Of course, we do face breakups, heartaches with the consequential pain and suffering. Life is never a bed of roses, but as we evolve we learn that the bed that once served us may no longer be so. In other words, we evolve as our bed of roses evolve. Who we were at 20 is not who we are at 40. Teaching our children to value and nurture relationships is perhaps a way to teach them relationships do evolve as they evolve, and often we all evolve at different rates and choose different directions.

Harmonious relationships are often peaceful and loving. Nothing is ever set in stone as we are not made in stone. We all evolve and some of us choose to evolve faster than others. I feel that becoming aware of this and mastering the skill makes us more compassionate and respectful of one another. Our children deserve all our love, respect and compassion. Their needs can only be met when they are heard and not just when they are listened to. Secure attachments demand us, parents, to be truly present for our children. Our ability to love when we birth our children is individualistic, the biological bond cannot be ignored, however, the subtle ability to be lovingly nurturing demands us to check in with ourselves.

Our children are our best teachers, we learn more about ourselves after we birth our children. Perhaps we become more compassionate and respectful of others when we mirror our children's natural demonstration of love and kindness. Perhaps we can better teach and lovingly guide them to our best abilities when we become better versions of ourselves when we evolve, heal and love. Children need to be celebrated, praised and always rewarded regardless of how well or how badly they performed. Efforts always need validation and recognition. Ultimately, it is all about raising them in love and with utmost respect and we can only hope that this could help them to build respect for themselves and others. It is about making them expansive and limitless, it is about giving and nurturing their confidence and making them believe in themselves. It is our parental duty to nurture strong can do foundations.

Collectively, humanity needs doers, not just talkers, we need strong actors and not just players. Parents are heroes in my eyes, and we parents support one another in many ways. Simply put the more we open ourselves the better we become. Sending you all love and light, more so to the many parents out there doing their very best in Pandemic World.

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