What Does Your Child REALLY Need From You?
by: Margaret Paul, Ph.D.
Most parents want to be good parents. Yet parenting is one of those things
that does not have hard and fast rules. So how do we know what to do? How do
we know what will support our children in being all they can be?
One of the most important things for parents to do is to learn to trust their
own intuition. Your feelings tell you when you are on course or off course in
your behavior with your children. When things feel right inside, then you know
that you are being a truly loving parent, and when they feel wrong inside, you
know you are out of alignment with what is in your highest good and your
children's highest good.
I remember my mother telling me that she used to put her fist in her mouth to
stop herself from crying and from picking me up when I was an infant and
cried. She had read in Dr. Spock that babies should not be picked up when they
cry, that it is good for their lungs to cry, and that she would spoil me if
she picked me up. But her insides were telling her the opposite - that babies
cry when they need food, changing, or love. It is so sad that she followed Dr.
Spock instead of her own inner knowing.
Now research has proven that babies who are not picked up when they cry become
more dependent and insecure than babies who are kept with their mothers. In
other countries, babies sleep with their parents until they no longer want to,
feeling safe all night. In our country, most babies are alone at night, some
crying themselves to sleep. This is not only sad, it is not healthy for the
baby.
So the first thing your child needs from you is to trust your inner knowing
rather than any book you read.
Your child needs your loving presence - not your busy preoccupied presence.
For your children to feel important to you, they need to feel you fully
present with them - reading to them daily, playing with them, holding and
comforting them, and listening to them.
Your children need for you to create a healthy environment for them by feeding
them healthy food, restricting screen time - TV, computer, video games - and
making sure they play outdoors and get enough exercise. They need your
encouragement to develop their hobbies and interests. They need you to try
natural remedies before resorting to drugs for illness, so that you don't set
them up for more illness with the side effects of drugs.
They need for you to be a good role model of self-care. Children need to see
their parents taking full responsibility for their own feelings instead of
being victims and blaming others. With this role modeling, they will also
learn to take full responsibility for their own feelings. Learning and
practicing the Inner Bonding process that we teach will support you in
becoming this loving role model for your children.
Children also need you to be a role model for care of the environment. My
daughter told me that my 3-1/2 year-old grandson got very upset with the
checker at the market for using a plastic bag. "No, no plastic bags! It's
bad for the environment!" he told the checker. By role modeling caring
for our planet, we can raise children who are much more conscious of taking
care of our environment.
Your children need to see you being connected with a spiritual Source of love,
peace and wisdom in order to naturally connect with their own higher power. By
developing your spiritual connection, they can learn to have their own.
What do your children really need from you? They need you to learn to be all
you can be so they have the role modeling and permission to be all they can
be.