Connecting with children through conscious parenting

“I often yell at my child, but I don’t mean to”, “My child doesn’t listen to me”, “I don’t understand my child’s behaviour sometimes” …… Sound familiar? Parenting is laden with moments where we often find ourselves torn in a battle between our heart and our mind where a wrong response can crush a child’s soul and the right response can boost a child’s confidence. In each of these moments, we make a conscious choice. That choice affords us the luxury to make or break, freeze, or foster. But the reality is that children are not for us to own, they never were. We are fooled into believing that we are raising them, when in fact they are raising us – to be the parents they want us to be.

The day my daughter was born, I made a promise to myself that I shall ‘raise’ her to be a good human being. But the very next hour after delivery, changed my outlook towards parenting. I became the sculpted from being the sculptor. I was holding this little bundle of joy who was making me laugh and cry in the same moment. She was teaching me to be more conscious and aware through bleary eyes from being starved of sleep. Little did I know that I would grow into this consciousness one day, and here I am 3 years later appreciating every minute of those lessons learnt.

I remember it being so hard to decode those incessant cries in the initial days while battling extreme exhaustion and frustration from being unable to help the little life. It was a rude jolt into reality from the dreamy picture of perfection that I had conjured up after reading voraciously during my pregnancy.

I remember talking to my obstetrician at my follow up appointment about my little girl’s bawling, and she joked with me saying, “So, what do we do then? Should we return this package?”

I had access to all the meaningful advice from my loved ones to help me through, and yet I was all by myself. As days passed, I began to recognize my connection with my daughter, and I shed the multiple layers of carefully constructed ‘plans’ that I had made, in parenting her. I simply followed her lead, and she is still leading the way. Let me present to you what helped me and what didn’t as I uncover some research and wisdom, I found in the writings of parenting experts.

The journey from unconscious to conscious parenting:

Reality is that the ‘how’ to build into each situation as it arises is not found in a set of instructions or between the pages of a paperback book. It lives in the connection between the parent and the child. The verbal, nonverbal communication, emotional connection, the deconstructed parental ego, and the natural flow of energy that exists between the child and the parent are where the gold is. What I am telling you here is, that parenting with awareness comes from one place – within you. If you try to find it around you, you will only end up complicating matters.

But if you let the wisdom that resides in books to ‘inform your journey as a parent’, it shines light in the darkest of places to open up new avenues for you.

Dr. Shefali Tsabary’s writing particularly is noteworthy in this regard as she talks about parenting from within, with astute consciousness. She suggests that a conscious parent does not emerge overnight. To raise children consciously is both daily practice and a lifelong commitment of becoming vigilant witnesses of our own unconsciousness.

What is unconscious parenting?

As parents, we are always eager to find answers to our children’s behaviours. We seldom seek answers to why we behave in a certain way that we ourselves don’t ‘approve’ of.

When my little girl was 18 months old and was going through a sleep regression, I had some of the toughest days of my parenting journey so far. Not because the days were ‘tough’ per se, but because I made them out to be. Her sleep schedule had suddenly turned erratic, and naps were hard to come by. She fought naps hard, and I fought with the notion that she was in fact ‘fighting’ her sleep.

At naptime every day, my heartbeat quickened as I read the last page of the story from her then favourite book. Then ensued a long trial of pleading, begging, cajoling, convincing, and at times even threatening, but all in vain. In that hour spent uselessly, I would go on a roller coaster ride of emotions and eventually give up to her resistance. The minute I gave up, everything would be as is, and she behaved as if nothing happened.

Over time, I realized that I was trying too hard. I was too caught up in my own agenda without realizing that I was missing out on the wonderous moments offered to me by nature, where I could have simply spent that time bonding with her. I could have continued to read, chatted with her about all the interesting things in her life, learned more about this little person that was changing my world day by day, and so on. However, I preferred to try fitting her into ‘my schedule’ and burnt my fingers.

Eventually, I learned to let go and allowed myself to believe that she will steer the ship well. And she did. In about 2 weeks, her sleep pattern began to regularize again, and peace was restored. All it needed was for me to be patient and rely on my inner world of calm in the outer chaos that surrounded me. I had to simply trust her and carry on.

This was me, parenting unconsciously. To parent consciously, one must undergo a personal transformation. As a clinical psychologist, author, and international speaker, Dr. Shefali puts it, “The ability to see our children separate from who we are is our greatest gift to them”.

What is conscious parenting?

Some recent research in the field of child development has demonstrated that a child’s ability to be securely attached to a parent comes from the parent’s strong connection with his/her own early life experiences. A conscious parent doesn’t look outside the parenting relationship for answers but is confident that the answers can be found for both parent and child within the parent, child dynamic. The 3 key concepts that give birth to conscious parenting are as follows;

1) An integrated brain: Clinical psychiatrist, author, professor, and neuroscience expert, Daniel Seigel proposed the terms ‘vertical integration’, ‘horizontal integration’ and ‘temporal integration’ of the brain to understand the scientific explanation behind a parent’s connection with the child.

A) Vertical integration: When the more complex, reflective, and conceptual processing of the anatomically higher cerebral cortex ( the thinking brain) is combined with the more basic, emotional, and motivational drives of the basic brain, we achieve the ability to respond from a vertically integrated state. Let me explain that with an example from my own life.

When my toddler began reaching out for the delicate showpieces that adorned the showcase in my dining room, I worried. I wondered if I should put them away, far from her reach. But when I noticed how gentle she was in reality, I simply decided to stay present in her moment of exploration with her.

By talking to her about the object she manipulated in her tiny hands, I would often end up discovering a learning moment myself. I learned that my baby girl was not this ‘destructive tot’ I had perceived (arising from the concept I picked up growing up and as a new parent from well-meaning advisors ) and in fact was only curious and was exploring her ability to reach. To compute this decision, I used vertical integration and paused between stimulus and response to think of the result from the avid exploration. I had nothing to lose by being present, and I chose to stay put.

B) Horizontal integration: This is when the right and left halves of the brain are connected. It is also called bilateral integration. It is in fact at the core of how we create the coherent narratives that emerge when we make sense of our lives.

often used my creativity to explain logic to my child. I came up with stories and narratives from my own life to help her understand certain limits or make sense of some experiences. I remember telling her how I once lost a crayon that I hadn’t put away carefully as a child and talked vividly about the grief it brought me. She learned about putting her own toys away through my experience.

Of course, reinforcement and repetition were necessary, and it still is. But when I see her put her shoes away on the shoe rack upon entering the house, I feel like I did something right somewhere.

Coherent narratives are the best predictors of a child’s secure attachment to the parent and hence are considered to be at the heart of a parent’s ability to provide a child with a nurturing environment and a secure base.

C) Temporal integration: Is what connects processes across time. Narrating stories do just that – connect events of the past with the present and the anticipated future. Stories are a way we connect to one another and they enable us to have interpersonal integration.

Children, even those who understand the spoken language, greatly benefit from using props like dolls and puppets or drawing pictures to help them understand what has happened to them and what may happen to them. Storytelling in this manner greatly reduces their distress and allows them an opportunity to make sense of their experiences.

2) Sharing of emotions to build connections:

Our kids pick up a great deal from how we embrace them each morning, how we react when they make a mess, how we handle ourselves in a conflict, how we sit and talk to them, whether we really look at what they’re showing us and whether we take a keen interest in what they say.

They notice how we intrude on their privacy with a million questions, and they notice when we give them space. They are moved by how we praise their achievements and wounded by how we put them down for their follies. They are aware of what it is to sit in silence with their parents and what it is to sit through a lecture of reprimands. What does all this convey to us? That our children are extremely perceptive beings.

When we resonate with our children’s emotions, their experience of themselves is that they are ‘good’. Often non-verbal emotions are the ones that introduce us to our child’s world more than words can.

One morning my little girl was playing quietly when she saw me fold laundry. She came running to me and said, “I want to help you”. I watched how her eyes wandered over the pile of clothes and her palms were open to touch them. I knew I had to rush if we had to be at the library in time for storytime. But I thought about what could happen if I disappointed her. So I got down to her eye level and said, “You look so eager to help Mumma. I appreciate your sweet gesture, love. But if I teach you how to fold laundry now, we may miss storytime today. Would that be okay for you?”

I had given her a choice and in doing so, had invited her to take a decision. This helped me relieve my conflict by involving the individual directly affected by my decision to make a choice and in doing so, I freed myself from the anxiety I felt when I was caught up in a conflict between my heart and my mind. She thought for a bit and then said, “Mumma I want to fold laundry”. I did not flinch and obliged. Children live in the ‘it is’ not ‘it isn’t’.

Daniel Seigel calls non-verbal emotions, ‘Primary emotions’. He suggests that primary emotions are directly observed in non-verbal expressions. Connecting to primary emotional states is how we tune in to each other’s feelings. In simple words, attuning to your child’s emotions could mean getting down on his/her level, having an open and receptive demeanor, looking at what he/she has brought to show you, and expressing curiosity and enthusiasm in your tone of voice.

3) Communication: Communication that involves an awareness of our own emotions, the ability to respectfully share our emotions, and an empathic understanding of our children’s emotions, lays a foundation that supports the building of lifelong relationships with our children.

It was hard for my little girl to understand the concept of ‘work from home’ initially when the lockdown began. She was overwhelmed with emotions when her daddy would spend time with her and then vanish behind closed doors for meetings and work. We found a middle way out and she was allowed to sit in with her dad on some occasions on the condition that she will co-operate with being quiet. She followed instructions to the ‘T’, and we were quite happy with how it was turning out to be.

Then one day, a tsunami of tears erupted. She wanted to be part of daddy’s ‘important’ meeting and he couldn’t afford to be distracted on this one.

Connecting to our children can be one of the most challenging and one of the most rewarding experiences at the same time. My daughter was experiencing a sense of ‘aloneness’ and she was expressing her fear and discomfort at this disconnection from her dad through protests and crying.

I needed to consider this huge emotion before I began the connecting process. I simply hugged her through her crying fit and said, “This is so important to you, you simply want to be with daddy, don’t you? I understand sweetheart”.

When she was calmer I spoke again, “You are very important to daddy. He loves being with you, but sometimes he has to be with other people all by himself too. I understand that he is suggesting you wait for him, but I also think he is telling you to remember how much he loves you and that he will come back to you”.

By building a sense of ‘joining’ in the child’s emotion and the child’s world, I had established ‘Integrative communication’. I have attached a table for your reference on how one can practice integrative communication through conscious parenting, in the ‘references’ section at the end of my write up.

A child wants to know not only what his parents think, but also about how they feel. By letting them peep through our own emotions, we can create a solid base for their own expressions. Feeling of being together, even when apart fosters security in a child’s life and supports their exploration of emotions in the world around them.

When a child doesn’t feel understood, little things can become big issues. My daughter has the habit of bringing home a ‘gift’ for me while returning from the park.

She brought me a stone one day and told me that I had to close my eyes before I got my special gift. I sat down next to her and closed my eyes as she placed something cold, smelly, and mushy in my palm. My heart raced and panic consumed me thinking of what it could be. I opened my eyes to see a stone (thank goodness) that was covered in muck.

I could have blown my top off quite easily then, but I watched her intently as she searched for that one expression on my face after looking at my gift. I said enthusiastically, “Oh my! Look at what I have got here. This looks like it’s the special stone from my darling child covered with natural stuff on it”. I knew it didn’t come out well since I was still loathing the fact of having to hold, maybe some doggie poop and glop in my palm, but I prevailed.

I was surprised at how a smile lit her face and she hugged me. She said, “Mumma I’ll bring you a gift every day”. I leapt at that opportunity and said, “Thank you darling for thinking of me, but I wonder if my gift smells this way because it has doggie poop on it? Do you think a wash would help clean it?” She readily obliged and I couldn’t fathom to think of what would have happened if not.

This is called contingent communication. It means that signals sent by the child are directly perceived and responded to by the parent in a dance of communication that involves natural collaboration.

We went back and forth between looks while maintaining each other’s respect and finally found a midway out of the situation. Had I misunderstood her experience and considered it different than my own, all hell would break loose and I’d end up crushing her confidence.

How can I become conscious and aware of my own emotions?

Conscious parenting encompasses all aspects of bringing up a child to be well rounded and a balanced member of the human race. To be able to be conscious and present with our children, we must learn to be conscious and present with ourselves.

The idea is to ‘sit with the emotion’ and experience it in its entirety. We often don’t check in with ourselves and are unaware of our own primary emotions. We function on autopilot most of the time, and the categorically negative emotions are then brought to our awareness by behaviour that projects our feelings outward and we end up hurting our children with our words or actions.

Truly feeling an emotion is to experience it with the incoherence that comes with it. To be fully present, one needs to neither vent it nor deny it, simply contain it. By silently witnessing our thoughts and emotions, in stillness we learn how to accept them ‘as they are’ and then we are in a state of ‘as is’. When we learn to accept life ‘as is’ and understand that everything may not go according to plan, but situations will have their own will – we begin to experience life in the true sense.

As philosophical as this sounds, there are some extremely practical and positive ways of doing this that are helping me along. Read on as I share them with you;

1) Journaling : Writing down our emotions, as they are experienced, without having to worry about being judged allows a completely new perspective into them. This helped me create a little distance from my emotions and as I stepped out to watch what I was experiencing, I realized how much I was ‘attaching’ to these emotions. Writing them down simply loosened the hold my emotions and ego had over me. I realized that they are ‘just thoughts’ and mere thoughts cannot overwhelm me.

2) Meditation/sitting in silence: When I practice sitting ‘with myself’, I merely sit with my eyes closed and focus on my breathing. As I simply notice my breath, I feel more ‘present’ and ‘in the moment’. This requires practice, and in fact, the first time I tried this, I didn’t want to give it any credit since all my thoughts came rushing around me and crowded my mind. But as I did this day by day, it helped center me. I realized that thoughts ebb and flow, and are impermanent. They do not define me.

3) Disconnecting from the roles played in life: Before you are a mom/dad, daughter/son, wife/husband, sister/brother, daughter-in-law/son-in-law, friend, and so on, you are ‘You’.

Parenthood can rob us many times of this feeling of ‘identity’ that we had before we became parents. The frustration, anger, void, disbelief, and loneliness that comes with it can consume our sense of ‘being present’. We are busy playing roles and getting through our days rather than focussing on our inward repair.

Our own early experiences and life learning has a tremendous impact on the way we parent if we are unable to disconnect from it. Engaging in some form of self-care is essential to begin to connect with yourself. It could simply mean sipping a drink without having to think of anything else. This was the hardest to practice, as I couldn’t run from the guilt it brought. But over time I realized that this ‘me time’ is what kept me alive and in the present. I did not allow other’s perceptions and images of me to define who I thought I was. I accepted my faults and strengths alike and decided that I was solely responsible for the way I felt.

4) Mindfulness: There is no manual that can offer answers to day-to-day situations that arise in the life of a parent. When we begin to know ourselves in an open and self-supportive way, we take the first steps in encouraging our children to know themselves. Daniel Seigel suggests the use of the acronym COAL which means being curious, open, accepting, and loving.

I often raise my voice at my child and regret later

Our children don’t intend to trigger us. They are being who they should be, while we are being who we shouldn’t be. The most common complaint that we have with our children is that they do not obey our authority. They fail to fall into ‘the plan’ we made for them. But ask yourself, are they supposed to fall into any ‘plan’? It is usually our interpretations of the situation, that trigger us and set the stage for dysfunction, not their action. By disobeying us, they threaten our authority and when we feel threatened, that becomes the real issue for a trigger.

What could I do?

Acknowledge the mood, because you are allowed to be in the mood. Experience the emotion, but don’t react and don’t fight against it. Stay neutral and simply voice your displeasure/discomfort to your child using a firm, but respectful tone of voice. Relinquish ‘control’ and accept the situation with an open mind. You may say, “I am upset that I have had to repeat myself for you to hear what I am saying. I do not like to be ignored” or “I do not appreciate that you drive that toy car over the wall, as there will be scratch marks on it. You may do that on the carpet though”.

This creates an opportunity to learn from the situation rather than judge it. Many a times you may find that your child was only curious and did not intend to ‘do what you thought’ she/he was doing. Dr. Tsabary gives parents a mantra – ‘It is what it is’. She suggests that we parent our children as they are and not as we want them to be. We have to accept our children in their ‘as is’ form. Once you have accepted your children in an ‘as is’ state, then even in the middle of their worst tantrums, you may sense a ‘pause’ emerging. Through this pause, you can then respond instead of reacting.

I found that when I had my own agendas and plans, I often could not figure out a way of ‘getting my child to do’ anything I asked for. I usually ended up in a place that was full of guilt because I raised my voice. I realized over time that if she and I got busy doing our ‘own thing’ instead of working toward a common goal, it only became harder. I heard myself yelling because I tried to speak over the voices in my head. I tried to make myself heard.

However, when I began to focus on my inner world, I realized that the situation did not warrant my yelling, but instead it needed my calm. My daughter had no idea what I was thinking and when I would make it known to her in a clear manner, she would not protest because she knew I was upset. Children are so perceptive that if we explain our moods rather than fight for supremacy, they oblige without any tantrums.

My child doesn’t listen despite repeating several times, and then I get upset

Children are naturally ‘present’ beings. They are absorbed in whatever they do and sometimes waiting for them can make it feel forever. But the reality is that their brains shut out any other sounds that could possibly distract them if they are engrossed with the task at hand. Transitioning from one activity to the next is where the difficulty arises.

What could I do?

Remember that this is not about you. Your child isn’t intent on disrespecting you but is simply deeply engrossed in the moment. If you remind your child 10 times in a minute, you are in fact giving them practice at shutting out the ‘noise’.

Instead, you may want to join them in their moment and redirect them. My little girl is obsessed with washing her hands. It takes forever for her to start washing her hands and once she starts, she cannot stop. If I scream alert messages from a distance, she simply ignores me.

But when I join in the fun, it is easy to bring her out of it. I get down to her level and whisper, “That looks like so much fun” and then she narrates her fun “Yeah, look this bubble is so shiny”. I say, “That is awesome! Let’s do one more bubble and then wash our hands as dinner is ready”. At times at the park, I let her have her last ‘slide’ or swing or castle in the sandpit before we head home. It builds a sense of time in kids and over time, they imbibe this newfound learning as their own.

I have so much to do, my child wants me to see her drawing the 100th time, and I am irritated

Our approval is genuinely important to our children at times, as they believe us to be ‘all-knowing’ or ‘most knowledgeable’. In such a situation if a parent displays irritation or frustration, instead of approval, the child begins to seek attention. That is in fact a trigger for misbehaviour in children.

What could I do?

Provide a sense of time, and say, “ I’ll come as soon as I am done folding this “. Instead of a regular, ‘good job’ or ‘well done’ try and say more and appreciate her real work. Say something like “I see that you have worked really hard at drawing that cat. Those whiskers must have taken so long to draw” or “Your control over the pencil is getting better day by day”.

Did you realize that this is not about you again? Your child is oblivious to the plans you have made or the chores you have lined up. A simple reflection on your emotion can again set you free.

When you are comfortable acknowledging your flaws, and negative emotions in a matter-of-factly manner, you convey to your kids that mistakes are inevitable. By laughing at your errors and readily accepting your insecurities, you remove yourself from the dais and join your child in a playful, non-threatening manner that allows them to connect with you.

I live in a joint family, and cannot parent alone. I can get frustrated easily

When a child is born, a parent is often forgotten. The focus is all on the child, and each member of the family begins to see himself or herself in the child. They will all want to teach and connect with the child and we may not always approve of what comes out of it, as parents.

What could I do?

Disconnect from the feeling of being responsible for living your child’s life. A child who is securely attached to a parent can perceive the parent as a place to ‘return to’. There is no better caregiver than a parent and your connection will help him/her understand other relationships.

Allow for trust in your child. When we make decisions for our kids without allowing them to chart their own course, we communicate to them our powerfulness and their helplessness which is counterproductive and fosters mistrust.

Life is neither good nor bad, it is neutral.

It is we who give it a name. This life in the form of your child is free, and freedom does not come with conditions. If you have instilled the sense of trust in your child, you may want to openly discuss your emotions with your child that may be keeping you from feeling like you are not given authority to parent in your own way.

Accept the ideas and suggestions your child may give you, even though you may not end up incorporating them. By merely communicating them to your child in a neutral tone, you have created a solid foundation of reverence between the two of you and your child will value this.

Our kids school us

Have you observed how easy it is for our children to release their feelings without staying attached to them for long? This happens if we permit them to feel their feelings in the first place.

When my girl once scraped her knee, I let her cry. I did not change her feelings, distract her, or threaten her with consequences if she continued to embarrass me in front of onlookers.

I wasn’t worried she was bawling in a park where all the other kids and parents stopped doing what they were doing, to stare at us. After she felt comforted, calm was restored and she quickly released herself from the grip of that emotion and blended into the next moment without any hesitation. I am in awe of that quality and I have tried my best to imbibe it. It is called ‘letting it go’.

Often as adults, we have trouble forgiving people who hurt us, and especially when we are aware of their untoward intentions. But even after the moment has passed, we carry them on in our lives without realizing it. We cannot seem to disconnect ourselves from the surge of emotion they cause us and that keeps us bound.

When we practice being ‘as is’, we free ourselves from this feeling and can immediately ‘let go’ to move on. There is no better teacher than a child who can teach us this lesson.

A child intuitively knows that emotions are not to be held on to, as they will flow and ebb.

When you parent consciously, it is crucial you realize that you aren’t creating a ‘mini-me’, but a free spirit pulsing with its own signature. For this reason, it is important that you lead a separate life from that of your child and find a connection in this separation to dance the dance of life. I hope you can stay connected with me for another informative read in my next.

REFERENCES

Siegel, D. J., & Hartzell, M. (2018). Parenting from the inside out: How a deeper self-understanding can help you raise children who thrive. page 69 Brunswick, Victoria: Scribe Publications.

Practices of Integrative communication:

1) Awareness: Be mindful of your own feelings and bodily responses and other’s nonverbal signals

2) Attunement: Allow your own state of mind to align with that of another

3) Empathy: Open your mind to sense another’s experience and point of view

4) Expression: Communicate your internal responses with respect; make the internal external

5) Joining: Share openly in the give-and-take of communication

6) Clarification: Help make sense of the experience of another

7) Individuality: Respect the dignity and uniqueness of each individual’s mind

Siegel, D. J., & Hartzell, M. (2018). Parenting from the inside out: How a deeper self-understanding can help you raise children who thrive. Brunswick, Victoria: Scribe Publications.

Tsabary, S. (2014). The Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering our Children. Vancouver, Canada: Namaste Publishing.