Hi everyone,
I'm Dr.
Shefali.
I'm a clinical psychologist.
Today I want to talk about one of the most transformative principles in conscious parenting and one of the most misunderstood.
I teach that we need to connect before we correct.
And this really doesn't sit well with most parents who have been indoctrinated to shape behavior,
Right?
When we see something wrong,
We correct it,
We reward what's right.
But we now know after so much science,
After so much of conscious parenting out in the world,
That our behaviors cannot be meaningfully shaped and influenced by threats or by control.
It cannot be truly deeply transformed without the power of relationship.
And relationship requires deep connection.
And this is where parents go wrong because they think that we just need to fix the behavior and they don't focus on the connection.
But connection is the foundation of good behavior.
It is the foundation of everything we build in our lives.
So when we correct and say the child is something wrong and we step in immediately,
We lecture,
We remove a privilege,
We raise our voice,
We send them on timeout,
Two things happen.
The child either complies or they escalate.
There are only two choices.
But either way,
Even when they comply,
It's not because they have deeply transformed.
They have just been deeply controlled and managed.
And then children who are managed grow up to be disconnected from themselves,
Who try to get their parents' approval.
And they stop trusting their own inner world because no one has ever truly met them there.
And the reason that connection doesn't work is that Children don't learn from fear.
They learn from their own internal compass over time with exposure and with practice.
Now connection,
You know,
Parents think it means like you have to bond and hours and hours.
No.
It means that you show the child that you see them for who it is they are,
Not for what they do.
How do you do that?
You put the phone down when the child enters the room.
You listen to them.
You attune to them.
You truly say to yourself,
Here is a being that is developing that I can trust.
That I believe.
And then we repair.
We're willing to repair when we do wrong.
And repair is not just a simple apology.
You have to first Be aware.
What did I do wrong?
And you have to acknowledge,
You know,
I think I came at you really hot and heavy and that's not what you needed in the moment.
Then you have to take accountability.
You have to take responsibility.
You know,
I was reacting for my own frustrations and that wasn't fair to you.
And then you ask them,
How did that feel for you?
What was your experience?
And then you create an action.
And then if the behavior shows up again,
It just means we do it again.
So I have created this worksheet.
It's called the Connection Before Correction Worksheet,
And it'll walk you through what happened in the conflict.
How connected you and your child are right now,
And the four-step repair practice,
How to address the behavior,
How to restore the correct behavior,
And how to build a course of action going forward.
Every difficult moment with our children is an opportunity to look in the mirror to examine ourselves,
To see where we are coming from a place of unhealed,
Unfinished baggage,
And then to transform ourselves.
So we not only connect with our children,
We also connect with ourselves.
So use this worksheet.
Conscious parenting is not built through thought,
Through ideas.
It is built through practice,
Through embodiment,
Day after day,
Moment after moment.
