Conscious Parenting: Empowering Our Kids by Doing Our Own Work
Don't you ever ask them, "Why?"
If they told you, you would cry
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you
–Crosby, Stills and Nash
In the wake of yet another senseless school shooting, I hold love in my heart and pause for all who have suffered. I cannot take anyone’s pain away, yet I can witness them, honor them, and hold the light within. I know there is no simple way to answer Why? Why does this keep happening? Instead, all I can do is to dive deeper within myself and look at the ways we, as parents, are connected to our children.
When my daughter Elyse was three years old, her father and I were going through hard times. Our marriage was falling apart. I was so stressed and wondered how I was going to be a single parent. Elyse was also showing signs of anxiety, like chewing her shirt. I took her to therapy and the therapist asked what was going on at home.
That’s when I decided to start therapy. After a few weeks of working on myself, I brought Elyse back for her next session, and the therapist said, “What did you do? She’s much calmer and more grounded.”
Our children need us to be present with them, today more than ever. In fact, many health professionals have described a national emergency when it comes to teens in crisis. In a recent article in the New York Times titled It’s Life or Death: The Mental Health Crisis Among US Teens, the US Surgeon General warns of a devastating mental health crisis, yet says that we have insufficient research to explain it.
With so much confusion and alarm around the challenges our kids are facing, we have to wonder: What does it mean to be a parent? What is our role as parents?
Naturally there are many parenting theories, and they’ve varied wildly through the years as we’ve evolved from authoritarian models to more peaceful, compassionate approaches. One article, called The problem isn’t your kids, it’s you, echoes the lesson I learned when Elyse was three, that “In order to ‘fix’ our children, we should first fix ourselves.”
Many years ago, my mother’s thesis was about how the unfinished soulwork within ourselves is projected onto our children, making them think they need to live out our dreams. She was ahead of the trend that has now become known as conscious parenting. A current leader in this area is Dr. Shefali. She writes, in her book The Awakened Family, that “placing expectations on your child instead of allowing the child’s own natural inclinations to emerge spontaneously may well result in an emotional Grand Canyon between you and your child.”
When my daughter was in high school, she was feeling so overwhelmed and hopeless that she chose not to finish her senior year in the traditional sense. I tried to empower rather than degrade her. I told her: Own your part of why you’re choosing a different path. And she did a phenomenal job, to the point where the principal told her, “You are such a courageous, beautiful soul. You’re teaching us that some kids need something different. You’re speaking up for yourself.”
I felt good that I had heard her and allowed her to be herself. I truly believe that my expectations are not a good reason for her to make decisions. Still, I grieved the loss of the traditional trappings—there would be no ceremony, no cap and gown. Letting go of that was my own work. I had to find a way to walk through that while putting my own expectations aside.
I credit breathwork for keeping me grounded; that’s what kids need most.
Breathwork can be scary.
To breathe deeply and intentionally is to meet oneself. But what we see when we meet ourselves is not always welcome. Anxiety often arises, or depression, which is suppressed emotion.
Breathwork can bring up old wounds.
Parenting gives us the chance to heal old hurts. Raising my daughter has helped me reflect on my upbringing. I always wished my parents had heard me. As a deaf person, the message I received from them was: Just be hearing, Mary. Just fit into the hearing world.
How was that even possible? I was completely out of whack. I wasn’t in the deaf world or in the hearing world.
That piece of me who wasn’t heard can easily be triggered, but because I have done my own work and forgiven those old wounds, I am better able to hold space for my daughter.
Breathwork grounds me in the present moment.
When I stay grounded, I don’t react as much. I can listen more. I can be present and that allows me to distinguish between her pain and my own. I can feel empathy but have a boundary too.
This behavior also gives her permission to take care of herself. She not only sees me taking care of myself, but she is released from having to take care of me. She can focus on herself.
And isn’t that what we all want as parents, to watch our children become the people they are here to be?
“A lot of parents will do anything for their kids except let them be themselves.” – Banksy