Our Children Are Our Best Teachers

photo by

Alicia Brown photography

I am glad I am a parent, because no other experience in my life has taught me so much. Every day my children ask me, push me, to open, connect, be in my authority, play, breathe, and be mindful of the way I am being. Every day they ask me to train them, teach them, show them, love them, and accept them and myself as we are. They ask me to sacrifice my own wants and come back over and over to my purpose, which is to be their mother, nurturing, enjoying and training these children who need me. No matter how much I sometimes don't want the job, my children are there reminding me who I am, what I really want, what I am capable of.

This week I've been revisiting my parenting philosophy. My journey has included learning about and considering three different parenting styles: Michael and Debi Pearl offer a traditional Christian perspective that uses the "rod" to train children to submit, without hesitation or question, to authority; Love and Logic teaches parents to raise responsible kids using techniques like giving kids choices, setting limits, and delivering creative consequences; and Gordon Neufeld's approach is about preserving the parent-child attachment by connecting with children before directing them, coaching children through their feelings, and showing them the behavior we are desiring from them.

As I was talking with Matt about this last night, I realized that although they would disagree with one another's methods, all three parenting sects place primary importance on connection. Parents are encouraged to train and discipline with love, empathy, respect, and honor rather than anger and reactivity. In fact, all of the styles tell parents NOT to discipline when they are feeling angry, but instead to take a break to refresh themselves. Parents are taught to woo their children, become friends with them, build their trust and create lasting intimacy. Across all lines, the common ground is how we are being with our children.

Paying attention to myself, to the fears that come up when I'm confronted by the things my children do and say, to the reactivity that happens when I demand things be the way I want them to be, is a lot more challenging than any discipline technique I could deliver. Self-awareness, breath, and purposefulness on my part can foster deeper intimacy, wise choices, creative response, and real connection. A friend asked me the other day, "Are my children seeing in me what I want to see in them?"

Matt and I decided, as we solidified our purpose and made choices for how we will respond to our kids, that our first step when battle arises will be empathy-- connecting with our children by putting ourselves in their shoes. Then, from a space of love and connection, we will draw from all three of the above disciplinary techniques, choosing a course of action that seems the best response to the situation. Certain circumstances call for certain measures, others different measures, depending the context, the child, the parents, the religion, and the purpose. But the discipline is the easy part compared to the part where I have to look at myself and deal with those fears of mine; that is the real learning.


"On the other hand, if we can let go of our idea in such a moment of how things "should be," and embrace how they actually are with this child; in other words, if we can remember that we are the adult and that we can look inside ourselves at that very moment and find a way to act with some degree of wisdom and compassion, and in the best interest of our child-- then our emotional state and our choices of what to do will be very different, as will be the unfolding and resolution of that moment into the next. If we choose this path, she [the child] will have taught us something very important." Excerpt from Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting