By trying to control our kids, could we miss who they are meant to be?

Helen O’Callaghan talks to a psychologist who says we need to revolutionise the way we parent.

SOME time ago, a friend of a friend made a general comment about the “awful things adults say to children”.

Who could disagree? Adults say entirely inappropriate things to children all the time.

But my mind instantly jumped to the times my then three-year-old daughter had tested my limits and I’d reacted with an emotional outburst that I immediately regretted.

There’s nothing like having a child to teach us humility, to take us down off our pedestal of righteousness and realise I’m not the best/kindest/most loving person I thought I was — I’m fallible and flawed.

This is one of the key messages in Dr Shefali Tsabary’s book, The Conscious Parent. A bestseller in the US in 2010, the book is just out on this side of the Atlantic.

A clinical psychologist, Tsabary believes the relationship between parent and child exists primarily for the parents’ transformation and only secondarily for the raising of the child.

We think our important challenge is to raise our children well — she says the foundation of effective parenting is to raise ourselves into the most awakened, present individual we can be.

Believing that parenting a young child is our greatest opportunity for change — she goes as far as saying that if we’re open to it our child acts as our guru.

The Dalai Lama wrote the book’s preface and Oprah has endorsed it as the most profound parenting book she has ever read.

But with chapters titled ‘Release your children from the need for your approval’, ‘Is your child growing you up’ and ‘Shelve those great expectations’, The Conscious Parent has met with scepticism in some quarters.

Read the book closely though and its truth strikes home — but it can be pretty uncomfortable at times. She sees traditional parenthood as a hierarchical exercise.

“We presume we’re entitled to control children because they’re smaller and don’t know as much as we do.” She points out that our children aren’t ours to own —“know this and we tailor our raising them to their needs rather than modelling them to fit ours”. We don’t need to fix, lecture or correct our children, Tsabary claims.

“Children carry a blueprint within them — they’re often already in touch with who they are, what they want to be in the world. They have their own destiny. We are chosen as their parents to help them actualise this. If we don’t pay close attention, we rewrite their spiritual purpose according to our whims.”

We do this when — instead of responding to children where they are — we push them to where we want them to be, pressuring them to have better grades, different personality traits, more socially acceptable friends.

“The traditional parenting paradigm gives us this unchecked right to control our children, to make them become who we could never become — so we miss who they’re meant to be. We don’t allow them to be authentic,” Tsabary tells Feelgood.

Conscious parenting calls us to be astute observers of ourselves and to be aware of the influence of our ego. Tsabary says, as parents, we need to move away from ego and surrender our opinions of what ought to be.

“This calls for a lot of inner work,” she acknowledges. “It’s hard to spot the ego — it’s not readily seen.” But our children have a way of unerringly pointing us to where our ego trips us up.

“Every one of us is destined to be triggered by our children in some profound elemental way,” she promises.

Our eight-year-old refuses to do his homework though we’ve tried every strategy under the sun get him to do it. Our 12-year-old slams the door in our face and we’re close to losing it. Our strong emotional charge is a signal that we parents need to look at what’s going on for us. It’s always to do with our subconscious issues, explains Tsabary: our feelings of helplessness, lack or failure and it’s an invitation to grow.

Conscious parenting means asking, in our interactions with our children: am I dealing with my child in an aware manner or am I being triggered by my past? What am I bringing to this relationship in this moment that’s mine to own and not my child’s to receive?

“Accepting our children in their as-is state — even the tantrums — brings a pause and from this emerges an understanding of how to respond to them rather than react.”

Tsabary concedes that conscious parenting is not for the faint-hearted. It takes a lot of courage to accept that a piece of us is contributing to the negativity we’re experiencing.

When I ask if parents — to be conscious parents — almost have to become their own therapists, she says yes. She has an 11-year-old daughter. “She has taught me the force of my own ego, how I really need to keep it in check, how I need to control my own reactivity and grow up.”

When I ask if she can recall any particular trigger that called on her to transform herself rather than fixing her daughter, she replies: “It happens all the time, everyday, when I give too many opinions, when I judge and criticise, every time I see things not going my way and I want to have a temper tantrum.”

Entrenched in the process of child-rearing herself, Tsabary is realistic. As parents, we can expect to be ‘triggered, entangled, overwhelmed and to engage in egoic parenting at times’, she writes.

Conscious parenting asks us to use the lessons embedded in these occasions to evolve as a person and to help our children evolve as well. It’s an approach we ‘inch’ towards, says Tsabary.

“The savvy parent picks up a piece here and a piece there, aware that even a tiny shift in the vibes in a family has the power to alter the consciousness of the entire family.”

Tsabary has acknowledged that seeing your child as a guide to your spiritual awakening might be stretching it a bit far for some audiences.

Here though parenting experts are in broad agreement with her views. Clinical psychotherapist Joanna Fortune agrees that raising a child is the quickest way to find out what was never dealt with or processed in your own childhood.

She also agrees that parents shouldn’t be in the business of fixing their children.

“Children aren’t broken. There can at times be disconnect between where the child is and where the parent is. Communication can be fraught and misbehaviour can happen but it’s not the child who needs fixing — it’s the relationship between child and parent that needs repair.”

Clare Healy Walls, leader of Waterpark Montessori International, which trains Montessori teachers, is author of a book that coincidentally has the same title as Tsabary’s — The Conscious Parent.

She’s just about to publish a follow-up, The Conscious Parent In Action. She likes Tsabary’s work a lot, from her dislike of sermonising and lecturing at children to her belief that life is wise.

“The world gives you feedback on whether you’re right or wrong. If your child dawdles and misses the train that’s bringing him to a party, you don’t need to lecture him — he has learned from the natural feedback of the world.”

Parent coach Val Mullally agrees with Tsabary’s philosophy that conscious parenting is about being mindful, about listening to our own inner awareness and being open to our children’s experience.

But she questions that it’s a new approach (Tsabary terms it revolutionary): “It’s not ‘new’. Much is age-old wisdom that our Western-culture has let go of in the past 400 years as we entered the ‘age of reason’.

We’ve put much so much store on left-brain logic, we’ve ignored that our right-brain emotions serve as a compass to help us navigate our relationships.”

She’s also concerned that Tsabary’s idea of our child ‘raising’ us could be misunderstood. “We must be careful not to ‘parentify’ our children, to give them the task of raising us.”

“Our children will trigger those subconscious areas within us that need attending to. If you were never allowed experience messy play as a child, your child getting covered in mud can well trigger an angry or upset reaction in you.

If you react, you might blame and shame your child. But as a conscious parent, you recognise your child’s behaviour is about him and your response is about you.

“You’ll probably notice your reaction seems out of proportion to what is natural child’s play. When incidents like this happen it’s our job, as parents, not to blame our children but rather to notice what’s triggering us and then to ‘parent ourselves’ — give ourselves the loving, compassionate support we need.”

Laura Haugh, mum-in-residence at MummyPages.ie, strikes what many parents will likely see as a realistic note. “The day-to-day life of raising your children, going to work and running your home is actually challenging enough in itself.

“ I think if people took this book as a Bible they’d be worse off. But if you were to be mindful and consciously parenting for an hour of the day, that would be positive.”

The Conscious Parent, Dr Shefali Tsabary, €22.35

NO KIDDING: DEALING WITH YOUR CHILD'S DIFFICULT BEHAVIOUR

Conscious parenting isn’t about being lovey-dovey and touchy-feely all the time, says Dr Shefali Tsabary. It isn’t about giving our children a green light to behave inappropriately.

It is about listening to our children, honouring their essence and being fully present, but it’s also about boundaries and discipline – about responding to our children’s needs, not catering to them.

“I’m uncomfortable when the word ‘discipline’ is used with the energy of domination — it’s like ‘I can’t handle these feelings, so I’m going to punish you’.

Discipline at its best is about being consistent, organised and holding the boundary. It’s about routine and being clear,” says Tsabary.

She sees discipline as behaviour-shaping, with the focus on positive reinforcement — more effective than punishment. “If your child has been talking rudely with [a] friend, note the first time he talks politely and reinforce it.”

She distinguishes between main rules and flexible rules:

Hold firm on the main rules: respect for parents’ authority around mealtimes, homework, bedtime; respect for parents’ authority when they say ‘no’; respect for self, including staying warm and safe; and respectful tone and attitude to others.

Flexible rules (ones that make no real difference to a child’s wellbeing and health) can be discussed and mutually agreed upon: what clothes to wear, what interests/hobbies to pursue, what friendships to keep and how free time is spent.

Flexible rules provide children with opportunities to express opinions, to learn give- and-take and to negotiate.

Say what we mean, mean what we say and follow through. When dealing with difficult behaviour, she encourages a swift here-and-now response.

But later help the child to process their feelings. After any form of discipline, it’s important to connect with child through story-telling, hugging or dialogue.Correction should never be at the expense of the relationship.

If child is acting out and you’re aware they’re sad, instead of focusing on the acting out, go directly to the emotional experience. Ask: ‘are you acting like this because you’re sad?’

When you find yourself repeating a dynamic without results, it’s time to stop and ask: what am I doing that isn’t working?

If we’re agitated, frustrated or exhausted, we’ll likely botch the discipline process.