I often see three groups of parents who are on an unconventional parenting path. (There are probably more, but this is what I’m sharing today…) The first ones are parents who know they want to do something different than how they were raised. These are the cycle breakers. These are the parents who grew up with abuse or neglect, or
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When a Relationship isn’t Working If an important relationship is feeling chaotic or disconnected, whether you’re struggling to parent a particular child, you’re in a parenting rough patch, or the strained relationship is with a partner, your parent, or another family member, you probably just want things to go back to peace, joy, ease, and fun. Or perhaps to experience
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We’re excited to announce the launch of our new space to connect consciously with yourself and with others at all stages of life. Are you a growth and holistically minded person? Do you have a relationship challenge? (Could be with yourself, or with a particular person in your life. Or maybe you want to better your relationship skills…) Are you
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I was talking to a mom about her holidays, and she was really feeling discouraged about how things had gone. Her kids had been fighting a lot and the image she had about how their time together would go didn’t match what actually happened at all. She felt really discouraged. I think so many of us hold ourselves and our
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Time to Connect to Our Self and Our Inner Guidance System In her book Connection Parenting, Pam Leo has a wonderful explanation for why it is so important to take this time to recharge ourselves, and it involves our brain-wave states. When we are alert, active, and thinking, we are in the beta brain state. Many parents spend time in this state
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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