Parenting….is hard. And right now, it can be even harder. Even though parenting was something I always wanted to do and the best and most fun part of my life, it is definitely challenging!
I talk to so many people about parenting challenges usually, and in this current time the issues are sometimes compounded by alllll the together time! It’s been really great for a lot of families. To be able to slow down, to connect over the little things more, to live life without 267 extra curriculars we used to think were “essential.”
It’s really important as we all continue our growth in conscious evolution to remember that we are modeling healthy emotional expression for our kids. They watch what we do, what we say and how we say it. They model their energy after ours.
If we are not conscious, and repeating old patterns unconsciously handed down to us by our own family of origin, we continue this unconscious handing down to them. The super cool part is that if we are able to shift some of these patterns, we change the future for our children, and their DNA for their children, and their children’s children. We change our legacy forever!
Many times, I hear from parents that their kids are struggling with anxiety or behavior issues. When we dive a little deeper, we uncover many reasons why this is happening. One common pattern I see is a parent who learned in their own child to be a “good girl or boy” by not disclosing if they had difficult emotions.
They may have cried to their parent once, had their parent shut down or invalidate their experience, and unconsciously learned to never ever do that again because it hurts too much. Their parent is doing their best, and probably had no idea that their small lapse in an empathetic emotional response reverberated to their child’s entire lifetime of suppressing their own emotions.
When a parent is going through their own emotional experience, and doesn’t have the emotional bandwidth to be present and attuned to their child, the child tends to shut down their experience, to not want to bother their parent, and to even unconsciously learn to tune in and take care of their parent emotionally, instead of the other way around.
This leads to the child unaware of their own lovely emotional guidance system, therefore ignoring it, not expressing it, and living a life disconnected from their truth. Maybe they go into the wrong career, marry the wrong person, and feel anxious. When we don’t know how we feel, our life goes off the rails. We are not in alignment, and disconnected from our true nature of peace, joy and fulfillment.
When a parent doesn’t know how to deal with their own feelings, it usually leads to them not knowing and feeling uncomfortable with handling their child’s emotional experiences as well.
Some ways to attune to your children, to allow them to feel their feelings, and grow up valuing, respecting, and listening to their own internal guidance system are:
1. Respect Them as People, With Boundaries:
Kids are people too! I know most of us understand at this point that the authoritative style of parenting doesn’t work if you want to maintain a healthy 
connection with your kids.
We can’t just yell at them and order them around unless we want them to rebel, to lie, to hide, and to shut us out of their internal world.
We have to attune to their energy, and remember that they are individuals that deserve to be respected and honored, even while we have to make them clean their rooms!
For example, rather than yelling at my teenage son through his bedroom door to come out and help unload the groceries, it works much better if I knock on his door, and ask if he can please come help,
His energy is much more willing, my energy is more peaceful without having to feel his resistance, and everything goes much more smoothly.
2. Lighten Up the Energy:
I also have a 16-year-old daughter. I remember being 16, and the drama and yelling and rebellion that I was feeling at that age.
I also remember my mom warning me how difficult my daughter would be as a teenager when she saw how strong and willful she was as a toddler.
And yes, she was and is definitely a strong willed, powerful, Scorpio soul. She has been one of my greatest teachers of patience, confidence and love.
While we are not perfect, we are very emotionally connected and keeping things light is a big part of what works for us.
We often laugh about each other’s stressful moments afterwards. Rather than tiptoe around it like a lot of people (and how I grew up), we call each other out and laugh about it instead.
For example: if my daughter is filled with extremely powerful PMS feelings, I gently bring it up to her, maybe offer some chocolate, and we can laugh about it rather than me getting triggered and reactive back.
3. Talk about it:
How I, and many people, grew up, was not to talk about feelings too much. To feel all of them all the time, but rather than bringing them to the surface to discuss, just trying to bury them so they will eventually go away.
The never going away part never really happens though. The feelings stay stuck inside if they are not expressed.
And the expressing of them doesn’t kill us! We tend to be fearful of bringing things up because we don’t want to “rock the boat.” If something uncomfortable is happening, we’d rather ignore it than bring it up.
I believe that rather than continuing to walk on eggshells, it’s much easier and healthier to just bring the thing up and talk about it!
For example: If either of my kids are a little cranky in the afternoon, and they have lightened this up a little by dinner, we will just talk about how they were feeling earlier and why they were feeling that way. “What was happening earlier, sweetie, were you feeling a little wonky?”
If I can feel a certain energy in the room, instead of ignoring and not trusting my feelings like I did in my house growing up, I can call it out with curiosity instead, bringing it to the surface.
For example: if I can tell my daughter is feeling sad about not being included in a friend hang out, even if she’s not talking about it, I can gently ask her “How are you feeling sweetie, are you missing your friends?”
The more we can help our children become comfortable with discussing feelings now, the better they will get to know themselves, and the better they will be at emotionally connecting to others in their relationships as they grow into adulthood.
I have some more tips for next time…. I hope you have fun practicing these for now. Bottom line, doing your own internal work is the absolute best parenting tool you can have!
Read more about Relationship Issues with Shana Olmstead.
