wikiHow to Practice Conscious Parenting

What do we do so our children understand the importance of a healthy body, learn to manage their emotions, and nurture love for their friends and family? What do we do to help them grow into inspired adults that will make a positive impact on our society, love our mother Earth, and discover the purpose of life and ways to be happy?

Steps

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    Practice Routine. We all need routine in our food consumption, in our sleep patterns, in our cleanliness and our exercise regime. This routine does not come naturally and it is learned and exercised from very young age. Without the routine our body will suffer. It is a carefully structured activity and should be rigorously followed. The routine includes:
    • Regular bedtime, regular mealtime, regular washing time, a set time for silence, a set time for creativity, a set time for play.
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    • The routine around food – at a set time, and place
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    • The routine around ‘spaces’ – dining at the dining table, playing in the playing room, doing the home-work after school, etc. With the set routine, your children will feel safe and 'at home' within their lives.
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    Practice Freedom. Exploring, experiencing and imitating the world of grown-us through free play, children are given a chance to subconsciously learn and emotionally mature through their own games. Too much of today’s learning is structured; children are ‘directed’, ‘instructed’ and carefully ‘followed’ at all times, so they do not have a chance to experience learning through unobstructed observation.
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    Practice Love. Children need to feel love at all times: love gives them confidence that they are heard, that they are present, and that they matter. A warm, loving and gentle environment gives children a wonderful start to life. Children perceive their parents' emotions and map them, so if the parent is angry, they will be frightened or chaotic.
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    Follow creative life flow. Objects of play should be as simple as possible, to allow the power of imagination to flourish. Buying ‘perfect’, expensive toys robs the children of an ability to see beauty in a stone or a shell. Freedom should be an integral ingredient of your child’s growth.
    • Go to a park or a beach and do not hurry, let your child play, be, experiment. Try not to interfere, let them be children, let them discover, explore, and invent their objects of play.
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    • Allow your child to cook, wash dishes, take care of plants, and take care of animals: these activities are extremely interesting for a child because they can act as grown-ups.
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    • Let your children play with others. Children also learn beautifully when with other children, they learn not to scream, shout or hit, because other children at all times challenge their emotional make-up.
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    Cultivate relationships. Cultivate loving relationships within your family, with your neighbors, friends, with the Earth and its inhabitants. Have in mind that you are not alone, that you are a part of a bigger 'picture' that will become your children's future. The development of thoughts should go hand in hand with the development of feelings and heart. Children have a beautiful capacity for feelings that will later in life give them a rich soul experiences.
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    Develop your child's intuition, sensation, thinking and feeling. Balancing the four elements that Jung describes as four basic components of a personality, you help your child become a holistic person.
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    Be tentative to the Soul’s whispers. A child has a deep longing to discover that the world is based on truth. Respect that longing. In our attempt to help children grow into inspired adults, we wish them to carry the youthfulness of their souls, and the wonders of childhood into their old age.

Tips

  • Love is the most important ingredient for conscious parents
  • Be careful not to stress your little ones with too many structured activities. They also need some 'time out', free space to contemplate, observe, learn through stillness.
  • Let your children explore and be on their-own, let them play without 'ready-made' toys. Life is a wonder full of mystery. Learning from flowers, stones, and other people, is wonderful, stimulates creativity and teaches your little ones how to never get bored.
  • Children love learning through rhymes, they love poetry, painting, story-telling, cooking, knitting, and their thinking capability beautifully develops supported by music, arts, and sports.
  • Respect our Mother Earth. Plant trees, have animals, have constant contact with nature.
  • Do not waste too much of yours and your child's time in watching TV, computer games, mobiles, etc. There is so much to explore and learn from nature, art, other people
  • Learn to encourage healthy competition. Working together is inspiring. Compete against yourself, not against others. It might sound really difficult but admiring the winner is nurturing, we can always learn from them.
  • No matter how much you give to a child you will hear a repeated sentence ‘I want more’. If you are not careful with your response, you might experience problems later on.

Sources and Citations

Article Info

Categories: Parenting | Raising Children