Hello, dear conscious parent
As 2022 is settling in, I want to challenge you with this question:
What do you want for your child?
If you are like most parents (I’ve talked to hundreds!), your impulse- response is:
I want my child to be happy.
I hear you, but I am here to tell you: stop wanting for your child to be happy, because it will never happen. At least, not the way you envision “happiness” for your child. Instead, help your child build resilience. It is a much more useful (and measurable) skill, life-lasting and life-saving.
5 Big Ideas on how to parent for resilience in 2022:
- Get comfortable with all emotions – in yourself and your child. Instead of running away from sadness, or repressing anger, look at emotions as messengers. A child’s body communicates primarily via emotional expressions, not language or cognition. Young children are incapable of rational explanations when an emotion takes over their nervous system.
- Learn to BE & SIT with your child during emotional episodes. Learn to listen without interruption for the most part; without fixing the child or the situation; without giving advice or lecturing. Just offer your warm and empathetic presence.
- Learn to set firm limits with love and warmth at the same time. This is not easy, but it is possible. Look for older posts on my blog about limits, or my book.
- Stick to your daily routines, especially bed time and hours of sleep. Your mental health is the single most important factor in how your child’s brain wires itself day by day by day. Without enough sleep, not only you can’t help your child build the muscle of resilience, you may become the source of stress for your child. This happens when you are cranky, impatient, unpredictable, not playful, authoritarian, etc.
- Cultivate a growth mindset together. Instill in your child, through modeling, the love for learning constantly, without seeking perfection, approval or a trophy- while befriending failure, a lower grade, or not being “the best or the smartest”. For more examples, read my older post on Growth Mindset on the blog.
This work is not easy, and wise parents are not doing it alone. They have a support system through my Conscious Parent Accelerator Program. Join today so I can help you too.
Testimonial from a mom after her 1-st coaching call with me in 2022:
“Dear Mihaela, we’ve just done our first session and I can already feel this was money best invested!
I have the feeling your program is going to be awesome for our family. Thank you ❤!”