The Consciously Parenting Blog

Self-care Few people disagree with the notion that taking care of ourselves is important. In fact, most of us usually get excited when we start talking about meeting our own needs. But most people don’t take the time to actually do it. There are too many other demands that need to take precedence. I suggest that we don’t have the

Principle 8: No man is an island. We need to create communities of support for ourselves and for our children. We need to take care of ourselves so that we can take care of our children. We simply cannot do everything that is on our list of things to do and care for the children in the way they need to be

Awareness of Ourselves When we are calm, well rested, and fed, we are probably pretty good parents. We are able to handle the little bumps in the road—the lost shoes, the dawdling child— without much trouble. But when we’re not on a green light ourselves, we may lose patience during the minor challenges of parenting. And when we are overwhelmed

Changing Behaviors Through Connection Behaviors can change by inflicting fear (emotional or physical pain, abandonment, separation), which creates disconnection, or by adding loving boundaries (understanding, keeping our child safe, curiosity about what is happening for our child), which creates connection. But when we inflict pain on them, we are saying that stopping this behavior is more important than the child’s

Children and Boundaries Principle 7: Children need boundaries. We can set appropriate limits for our children while still respecting their needs and feelings–if we are aware of ourselves. (We can ask, for example, “Is this about me? Is this about them? Are my children communicating a need? Is the boundary I’m setting necessary, or is it an opportunity for me

Feelings as Inner Guidance System More importantly for our discussion on feelings is that our feelings can help to guide us on our life journey and especially on our parenting journey. Our feelings can let us know when our life is out of balance, when we have unmet needs that need to be considered, or when something isn’t right with

Feelings and boundaries It took me a long while to really understand that allowing my son’s feelings didn’t mean that he got to do whatever he wanted because he was feeling a certain way. In fact, it usually meant that he was often too overwhelmed for whatever he wanted and he needed me to reign him in a bit by

The Power of the Pause When I began to change the way I was responding to my children, I started pausing because I didn’t know what else to do. What I was doing wasn’t working, but I didn’t have a clearly defined new plan either. And I still had work to do on my own past so that I could

Your Own Healthy Expression of Feelings If we, as parents, can understand that feelings are messages from our inner guidance systems and learn to express our own feelings in healthy ways, we can not only benefit ourselves, but also model these behaviors for our children. When we can learn that our own feelings are all right and how to move

What is Healthy Expression of Feelings? The most difficult part of learning to express our feelings appropriately is recognizing when someone else is doing so. We have seen healthy, appropriate expressions of feelings so seldom in our lives that we don’t know for sure when it happens, much less how to model it for our own children. Emotion is energy