Parenting The Child You Have

If you're parenting, and wondering why what you tell your child doesn't always seem to get through, then this quick and focused meditation is here to help. Raising our kids is about so much more than just teaching them well; it's about figuring out who they are so we can guide them skillfully. This audio will help you share your values and wisdom with your children in a way that honors their temperament, so the relationship between the two of you can bring out the best in each of you.

Transcript

Today, I want to talk about something that is very confusing in the parenting world. Which is the idea that Somehow the way we parent will change the child that we have. That is not true. We are not responsible for the people that we have. We are responsible for how we show up for the people that we have. And different kids need us to show up differently. Here is something that I think is really worth talking about that just doesn't get enough time and attention which is parenting is almost like an arranged marriage of sorts where we pledge our lives to someone we don't even know who they're going to be and before they are born or before they join our family we say I am going to be the person who will love you no matter what. I don't know who you are mentally, Emotionally, What's going to happen in your life, What you're going to need medically, Anything like that, And I am 100% pledging myself to be your person through thick and thin, No matter what, Till death do us part. Wow, That is quite a promise. And we parents make that promise every single day. Who does that? People who commit their lives to love. And really having a child and raising a child is the most intense experience of love that so many of us might have in our lives. It is a very different kind of love than we have with adults and people that we get to choose. You get to be in or out of my life. Parenting says beyond choice, You are my person and I will be yours. Then we put all this pressure on parents to say, Well, If your child is not doing a certain thing or not doing well at this or doesn't have this skill, It must be because you didn't give it to them. Well, I'd like to personally suggest that we actually question that. I think the reality is children come into the world as the people that they are and our job is to help learn who they are and then to shepherd them along that journey. And if you think about it as like a Venn diagram where we have a circle, That is the circle of our values and the wisdom that we want to pass on and the care that we want to give. And then we have a circle that is who they are. Their temperament, Their ability and their willingness to receive. How they learn. What matters to them, What language works for them in their brain, In their soul. Finding the space where those two circles overlap like a Venn diagram, That is the place where we can parent most effectively. So do we have absolutely no say over who they are and who they become? Absolutely not. That would be abdicating our responsibility to them. But do we have complete and total say? Absolutely not. That would be a fantasy. The goal is to figure out the place where the relationship lives, The place where they get to be who they are, And we get to do our job, Which is to care for them and guide them in a language they can receive. So what does this look like? What does it look like to find a place that respects both their temperament and also our values? This brings up a place where we really can use our parenting to the greatest benefit, Which is to learn to see who it is we are living with, With clear and clean eyes. Do you have a child who actually loves to be first through the door, Is super competitive, And really loves to be a leader? Teaching that child to hang back and be second, While it might seem like a great value to teach, Is often not going to actually align with who they are calibrated to be. So you might find that your parenting will actually be much more powerful if you teach them how to be a thoughtful, Kind leader, Rather than teaching them to come second. So teaching them to be a leader who makes the place better for everyone else is a place you can get those values in. If you have a child who is naturally very anxious, Likes to hang back, Teaching that child to be brave and go first may not land as well. But teaching them to learn from other people's bravery may be the closest, Easiest pathway to helping them build their own. So as you look at what your values are and what you want to bring to your children, I encourage you to also open your eyes to who your children are and how they wish to learn because it will make your pathway easiest and it will make the learnings easiest to receive and easiest to grow from.