Reaching A Higher Love
The best present you can give to your child is your unconditional love. There is nothing greater that they will ever want or need, and here are the tools to help you bestow that precious gift. As you learn more about your thought patterns, start to recognize that many of them revolve around wanting specific results for your children. It seems only natural as a parent to want so many great things for them, like good grades, winning scores, and lots of friends. Often our love gets confused with our wants and this is where our parenting can really go off the rails.
When our satisfaction with, and connection to our children gets tied up in their accomplishments, the love that they feel is transactional. Since children desperately seek our love and approval, they do all they can to satisfy us by trying to meet our demands. This is too great a burden for them to bear and it actually wounds them, whether or not they actually “make the grade.”
Conditional love is not really love at all; rather, it is need disguised as love. Frankly, it stems from our need to feed our ego through our children. Mindful parenting involves a higher level of love; a love that is independent of any outcomes or external measures. This type of love does not demand the achievement of any particular goals, as it is just simply love which feels very authentic to the child.
When we love our children in this way, it increases their self-esteem as they come to learn that they do not need to work for our approval and love. This higher love sends the message that they are inherently worthy of our love just as they are. This is how self-love is generated in children, and this is why mindfulness in parenting is critical to fostering a child’s self-esteem and sense of self-worth.
So, let’s stop wounding our kids by making them chase the next great outcome. The next time you find yourself seeking a specific result for your child, whether it be a high grade, a good score, or a party invitation, pause and ask yourself if you need that to happen to feed something within yourself. This level of awareness is enough to help you shift this pattern. Then you can figure out exactly what your child needs for their growth, rather than what you need to feed your ego.
And don’t forget … pick up a copy of my book today: HOW TO RAISE A PARENT: Becoming a Conscious Parent in an Unconscious World. It’s chock full of lessons and stories about unconditional love, awareness, triggers, control, and fear, and all of the essentials to become a conscious parent.