Thursday, May 24, 2012

Parenting Reminders

Self Awareness is the key.
If you ignore your child’s expressed needs, you diminish his/her self awareness.
If you respond with acceptance of your child’s needs, you increase his/her self sufficiency and growth.
Parents who neglect their needs are inadequate in recognizing and understanding their child’s needs.

When parents are unaware of their own basic needs, they are unaware of their child’s needs.
When parents are responsive to their own needs, they are supporting and respond to their child’s needs.

Do you know when you are hungry?
Do you meet your own hunger needs with full enjoyment and self love?
Do you know when you need rest and/or sleep?
Do you meet your own sleep needs with fully enjoyment and gratitude?

When you know yourself, you become more aware of others as well.
When you trust yourself, you trust others as well.
When you respond to yourself with kindness, you will respond to others with kindness as well.
When you are honestly loving and caring well for yourself, you will be able and willing to love all well.

Where we are in denial, sacrifice, deprivation, we will deny, ignore or deprive others.
It is essential that parents honestly acknowledge and handle their own needs first.
When you are not treating yourself with loving kindness, you are unaware of how to treat others well.
It calls for personal time out (we usually give time out or discipline children) to clarify our unmet needs. 

When an child knows they are hungry, they will eat what satisfies their hunger with enjoyment.
If it is unavailable or denied, they learn to deny their awareness of hunger.
When a child knows they are tired, they will sleep or rest with pleasure.
If quiet time is denies or unavailable to them, they learn to resist or deny their own need to rest.

When we have live with self denial, we develop habits of compensation or simply ignore well-being.
When we deny our basic needs, we learn to cope with acting out, complaining, sickness, addiction, etc.
We forget how to listen within, respect and trust ourselves.
We use external authorities to get advice, help, support, information, opinions and quick fixes.

There is no quick fix to being unaware.
There is no advice from another about what is true for us.
There is no support another can give us, except to  not resist our personal awareness.
There is no information that will give us the understanding to what we resist.

Let the infant tell us what they need with their self expression with body language and vocalization.
Allow the toddlers and preschoolers to clarify their own needs through trial and error. ( yes and no)
Give every child the opportunity to be heard and respond with kindness and respect.
Be aware that when they do not know what they need, because they have been denied or ignored, they will look for compensations or coping skills.

When kids are crying or whining, they do not have the self awareness or words to express what they need.
When adults are upset, angry, complaining, worrying, they do not have the self awareness to know what is needed.
When we have been denied or ignored, given quick solutions or punished, it results in self ignorance.
When we lack self awareness and the ability to satisfy our own needs, we learn temporary compensations.

Parents, listen to yourself and satisfy your own needs without delay.
Parents, step away from the habit of meeting other’s needs before your own.
Get enough sleep every day.( Each individual has their own sleep needs.)
Give yourself the nutrition you need as you need it. ( Rarely does the same schedule work for everyone.)

Parents need to learn to be self aware.
Parents must satisfy their own requirements, before they can respect children’s needs.
This is not about spoiling or selfishness or making anyone more important than another.
This is about learning to be self aware and self sufficient to be a happy, healthy and helpful person.

I care because I want what is good for all of us.
Betty Lue 

Negative emotion is your indicator of resistance, while positive emotion is your indicator of allowance. And they are on the same meter: allowance; resistance. Allowance; resistance. 
--- Abraham