I read The Continuum Concept when my oldest daughter Cassandra was two, after reading dozens if not hundreds of books before it.

I never read another parenting book after that. 

This one was IT.

It so resonated with every part on my being that I knew I had to somehow find a way to apply it in my Western life.

And made it my mission to do so.

It was NOT easy!

It took a few years, a wholehearted and unwavering commitment to it, and many tears on my part and on the part of my poor first child and guinea pig Cassandra.

But what I can gratefully say is that once it really clicked, once I connected to the place in me which was awakened when reading the book and instinctually knew how to take care of my little ones, parenting became SO easy!

I feel I owe Jean Liedloff (the author of the book) the incredible joy and ease I experienced in raising my 3 now grown daughters, as well the (mostly) intact spirits they get to walk through life with, which is so completely different from what my experience of life is.
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Here are a few examples of what I experienced in my family, which I completely credit to my embodying the teachings from the book:
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• I truly felt I was done parenting with each of them somewhere between the age of 12 and 14. 
• They excelled academically, once they chose to stop unschooling and attend school of their own choice, without any manipulation or imposition of any rules from my part.
• I experienced no teenage rebellion or ‘acting out.’
• There was very little conflict in my home. 
• My daughters, though loud and rambunctious, were incredibly well behaved. 
• I didn’t worry about them once they left their home state to go away to college.
• I fully achieved my parenting goal! 

What I most wanted for my daughters was for them to have an unshakable sense of self, be self-confident, inwardly motivated, self-sufficient and have the ability to find their own happiness in the world.

​I can say with a resounding ‘YES’ that I’ve achieved it, in spades, with all 3 of them.

The word that comes to me, watching the way they move about in the world, is ‘unencumbered.’ Something I myself so long for and have worked pretty much full time on, for 17 years, to achieve in my own life.

So what are the core things I took from the book and applied to my family, to my parenting? ​​
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​There are 6 core principles which guided me to those results, and which I now help parents integrate in their families, through my Clean Parenting program. This work leads them to the same ease and harmony in their families as I had in mine, while also ensuring that their children’s spirits remain intact.

 yourself WHY he’s doing what he’s doing and address the cause of it instead of imposing a consequence or punishment which will only serve to temporarily control the behavior, won’t address the real issue and will damage your connection with your child, and your real ability to influence them, from a place of trust.

For example:

If your child hits his younger sister when she knocks over his block tower, you’ll ask yourself what’s going on for him that he’s resorting to hitting. It’s likely that he’s frustrated that he can’t freely play his game anymore. He may still be trying to adapt to having a younger sibling and miss having all the attention to himself. He likely doesn’t know how to positively channel his anger feelings. He likely doesn’t know how to protect what matters to him in a way that’s respectful of others.

By asking yourself why your child behaved in the way he did instead of controlling his behavior, you have an opportunity to understand him, help him process what he’s struggling with, and to teach him positive and respectful ways of going after what he wants.

As all this happens, he becomes an increasingly happy, cooperative and easy to be with little boy.
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Arguably the most important thing you can focus on in your parenting is being on the same team as your children.

When you’re treating them as though they’re on your team, you’re nurturing their sense of inner rightness. You talk with them and not at them. You engage their cooperation.

When your children FEEL that you’re on their team, they want to please you. They’re open to your input. They trust what you tell them.

So many of our relationships and interactions have an adversarial undertone to them that we don’t even notice it. There’s often a sense that one person is trying to get something from the other, is trying to convince the other of something, is trying to get their needs and preferences met over the other.

Working on creating an attitude of being on the same team means that we’re never trying to meet one person’s needs or preferences at the exclusion of another’s. We deeply value the other person’s experience as well as our own and look for win-win situations.

Here’s what it looks like in a family that operates on the ‘everyone is on the same team’ principle:

• Everyone’s needs and preferences matter equally
• Everyone FEELS that their needs matter
• Parents and children look for win-win situations
• There are no double standards
• There are no punishments, rewards or any other attempt to manipulate
• Disagreements are handled with discussions, respect and a focus on connection, meeting needs (as opposed to desires) and tapping into each other’s desire to cooperate
• Parents listen to children’s feedback and take action on it

What I’ve come to call clear benevolent leadership is one of the concepts most unique to The Continuum Concept, and is the hardest to embody, because most of us have had no examples of it in our lives.

Being a leader as a parent is tapping into the natural order of things, from an evolutionary perspective, in which children look to their elders to learn about the world and for guidance on how to conduct themselves.

The thing is that young children don't have the experience nor the big picture in mind to make decisions, in many situations. Therefore it is normal and healthy for us to make those decisions for them, for our family. This organically and quickly shifts as they get older and grow in their ability to make decisions.

At the same time it’s critically important that we guide them in a way that is totally respectful, nurtures their sense of self, and doesn’t in any way damage our relationship with them.

Here’s what it looks like:

• It’s really a way of being, a stance where we are clear, loving and grounded in ourselves.
• We deeply understand that our children are eager to contribute and cooperative.
• We know that they're are innately caring, compassionate, responsible, loving, etc., so that we don’t have to coerce them into any way to get them to act the way we’re directing them.
• We know that they want and need to learn from us how to function in our society.
• We completely respect and trust them.
• We always take their needs into account.
• And from this place we offer information matter-of-factly, knowing that they’ll welcome it and act on it.
• We don’t pussy foot around setting limits or telling them not to do something because we don’t fear that it’s going to negatively impact them.
• Nowhere in our words or attitude is there a hint that they’re bad or wrong.
• It’s so understood in the relationship that it's our place to teach our child that they automatically look for our feedback when not sure how to do something.
• If they are doing something that’s not appropriate, one look will be enough to understand and shift their behavior because of the level of trust that’s present.
• Often, all that’s needed is a look, (This is isn’t in any way done in a judgmental or shaming perspective, but from a very deep mutual understanding that it’s the parent’s job to show the child the way.)

​It does take work to integrate, but I promise that once your leadership is established, your life will be so much easier! It might be even straight up easy, as mine was, so it’s well worth the time and focus to achieve it. And it is well worth doing any inner work you need to do around this to clear what’s in your way of embodying it.

If children don’t feel your clear leadership, they will act out as a way to express their inner discomfort. Their acting out is NOT a call for more freedom but a call for clearer guidance, for the leadership that will make their world feel right and will make them feel secure.

This is a huge topic and one I can’t do full justice to here. For more information on it, read my full length article on it (which includes a video of one of my beloved daughters giving an example of it,) “The Key to Well-Behaved Children Who Listen to You, While Fully Respecting Them."

Another point that is unique to the Continuum Concept is that of not being child-centered.

As parents, we need to create lives that feel good to us, in which we focus on our own tasks and interests, while our children are on the periphery. What we do should be compatible with our children, but our lives are not about them and their activities. 

Having our children be our entertainment causes a shift from their intrinsic motivation and their own connection to their activities, to an extrinsic motivation where they aim to please us and get validation from us. It cuts off their self-connection. 

It also gets in their way of having their own space to be, do, learn and explore without any interference. 

It leads to children who want a lot of attention, feedback and approval on whatever they do, who can’t just appreciate what they enjoy doing for its own sake but are dependent on the validation of another to enjoy it. 

This is often the cause of children who feel very “demanding.”

I’m not saying that you should never play with children or engage in children’s activities. However, contrary to popular opinion, it is definitely NOT necessary to play with your children to meet their needs and build a strong connection with them. 

But because of the artificial set-up of most of our families, our children are more reliant on us for their social needs than if we lived in ideal tribal situations. It’s perfectly appropriate for us to do things with them, as long as we genuinely enjoy them, but those things need to comprise just one part of our overall enjoyable lives that include a lot of our own interests. 

I played countless games of Skip-bo, Rummikub, cards, as well as read books and did puzzles with my girls. As long as I enjoyed it and didn't make it my job. What I saw as my job was to ensure that their social needs were met.

Continuum Concept parents often feel caught between a rock and hard place trying to meet their children's needs and not be child-centered.

What I propose is what I call FAMILY-CENTEREDNESS. Most of us do not live in tribes (unless you’ve managed to find and make work the utopic intentional community most of us dream of) and need to make the best of our family and community configurations. 

The goal of family-centeredness is to find a way of living and activities that meet everyone’s needs as much as possible. 

Do make sure that you have activities that fulfill you and make you feel like you contribute! They can either be activities you can do while your children are engaged in something else in the same place, or which you do while they have activities away from you where their needs are being met. Or things you can do all together. 

Trusting children’s instincts tends to be one of the main things people remember when they think Continuum Concept.

Who can forget the example of the toddler handling a machete, or the baby crawling by the open pit?

I have to say that I’ve had some very clear examples in my family which proved to me that my babies and children had much better survival instincts than I ever would have thought. And I can share those with you if we ever talk. (Click here for an audio of me talking about this topic.)

But what I actually want to talk more about here is trusting them to make their own decisions.

A mom told me last year that she wasn’t willing to experience the consequences of letting her daughter make her own decisions. To which I responded with a whole impassioned article on how I was not willing to experience the consequences of NOT trusting my daughters. Of making their decisions for them. Of having them rely on me to guide their decisions and monitor what they do.

Giving them freedom to make their own decisions is what's allowed them to remain connected to their inner guidance, instead of them shifting their focus outward, to what others tell them. 

The only person who will always be with them, whom they can always count on is themselves. 

Therefore, I've seen it as my job as a parent to nurture and strengthen THAT relationship above any other.

Trusting my daughters to make their own decisions while they still lived with me allowed them to develop their experience while I still had influence on them, and could still give them my opinion and feedback.

By the time they move away from me at 18 (Cassandra has been in Florida for 4 years and Audrey in New York City - of all places! - for almost a year,) they have been making all their decisions by themselves for a long time, therefore are very well equipped to make them.

Trusting my daughters to make their own decisions, from toddlerhood on, has made my life as a parent so much easier than those of most other parents I've seen.

And it's ensured that my daughters knew how to keep themselves safe, rarely got hurt and are now well equipped to handle life on their own.

One of the most impactful idea that I got from Jean is that our children will do what we expect them to do. This is something that was quite hard for me to understand and implement when my daughters were little, but that I got to deeply understand as I got involved in personal growth and spirituality.  

Our children respond to the beliefs and attitudes that are underneath our words, actions, and reactions. It’s by changing those beliefs and attitudes (often times through doing deep inner work) that we can shift to having happy and cooperative children.

A common area where this is obvious to Continuum parents is physical safety. Many families report experiences such as mine, when the only time one of my girls cut herself with a sharp knife is when my very non-Continuum father yelled out ‘Be careful!’ and she turned abruptly in response to his extreme reaction, and nicked her cheek.

Think of how differently you’ll respond if a child is climbing high on a structure and you trust that he knows what he’s doing, versus if you think he’s incompetent in taking care of his own safety. And then think of how you’d feel on the receiving end of each of those responses, and how it might impact the way you react in each situation. This may give you a sense of what I’m talking about here.

But an area where this concept is much more pervasive, hidden to many, and damaging, has to do with our beliefs about children, and humans in general.

For example, even if you intellectually believe that your child is innately good, your programming, because it’s what you experienced from infancy on with your parents, might be that children are not. You might have been treated as though you were defiant and bad, and in need of correction and molding, through punishments and rewards. 

​Many times, by focusing on the ‘issues’ in this way, parents have been  able to resolve them in as little as one session with me. And the crazy thing is that often the child automatically stops reflecting it, the same day, without the parent having even talked to him about it.
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But as much as The Continuum Concept can open our minds to a total new possibility of being with children and life with them, and provide us with the basis to raise truly whole children and have ease in our families, there are times when the blessing of this beloved book turns into a curse.

There are three very common things I want to warn you about, which fans of the book often struggle with, and causes them much unnecessary turmoil:
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1.    Be realistic!!

You may dream of providing the perfect tribal and natural environment to your children that Yequana parents do. 

But the reality of your life is that you can’t. And you HAVE to accept that, if you’re to enjoy being a parent, and in order to be the best parent you can be to your children. 

Take time to acknowledge and mourn what you dream of, and isn’t, and then move on!

Keeping your mind on what you think should be and isn’t, unless you’re taking concrete action steps to achieve it, will only cause you, and therefore your children, pain.

It’s really just about accepting reality!

You wanting reality (or yourself!) to be different will NOT change it and will prevent you from finding the best ways of actually working WITH what you have. 


2.    Trust Yourself Instead Of The Book

This topic is one of my pet peeves with Continuum Concept parents. If you know me, you’ve likely heard me say that some parents should throw out or burn this book, even though it's my parenting bible.

Why?

Though I’m a firm believer in studying to learn better ways and in getting guidance from people more experienced than us, with whom we resonate, this can backfire when we try to copy or emulate something, instead of listening foremost to our instincts, to our inner voice. 

So use the book as a reference and guidance to connect with what’s true for you and what works for your family.

But DO NOT have your eye on an imagined and likely impossible vision of what you think would be ideal, at the exclusion of what feels right to you or works for your family, in your specific situation. 

This gets you in your head instead of being in your heart, your body, your intuition, connected to life, instead of just being present.

Above any theory, ALWAYS honor your instincts and your feeling of what’s right in the present. 

I’ve seen many parents be miserable because their life doesn’t represent their Continuum Concept tribal ideal, whereas they could be very happy if they could only forget they ever read the book. 

I've seen one mom's life completely changed just because I told her that she was right on track, to keep doing what she was doing and to totally forget about the book. 

She reported back to me a few weeks after we talked, saying that she was suddenly more confident and was actually enjoying her son much more.

JUST BECAUSE SHE STARTED TRUSTING HERSELF AND STOPPED QUESTIONING HERSELF!

Just like you can trust the sense of rightness in your children, the one thing you can always trust is the feeling of rightness in you (below the thoughts and the crap—what’s there when you just ARE). Trust that, above any book or any expert’s advice, including, of course, mine! 


3.    You Will Not Automatically Have A Yequana Toddler Because You Complete The In-arms Phase!

And you’re not doing anything wrong if you don’t!

Some of the reasons your toddler (or older child) isn’t like Yequana toddlers are:

• You don’t know in your bones how to be a clear leader for your child. In fact, chances are you’ve never even experienced one! This is something you need to develop.

The more you integrate the concepts I described here, and heal the pain that’s activated in you through parenting, the more your toddlers and children WILL turn into the ones you envisioned when reading the book.

​Though living like the Yequanas is not possible for us, as much as we may long for it, there’s A LOT we can learn from them and integrate into our modern lives.

Is it easy? Absolutely not.

Is it doable? YES!!! 

I did it, even though I was a pretty clueless and very messed up 26 year old when I first read the book, and still mostly managed to implement it.

What I did know was that I didn’t want my daughters to grow up with the same pain and feelings of worthlessness and not belonging as I did, and which I still to this day sometimes struggle with.

I’m not sure what in me had the drive and clarity to go for this with such determination and unwavering focus, but I am SO grateful to the young mom I was for doing so!

Because we’ve all reaped its benefits in ways I could only imagine, and had never been a witness to in other families.

And I now have the joy and incredible honor of supporting countless parents in also experiencing the same results in their families.

Wanna be living the Continuum Concept promise of ease and harmony in your family?
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Then join me in my next Clean Parenting group!

"DOING THE CLEAN PARENTING PROGRAM WAS ON PAR FOR CHANGING MY LIFE AS HAVING MY FIRST CHILD."

Here's what Kristen Phillips of Cottage Grove Oregon wrote of her experience of working with me for support in applying the Continuum Concept approach in her family:
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​"I’m not sure I can quite put into words exactly what Eliane and her programs have done for me. When my first son was born, my world completely changed. So many things that I thought I knew suddenly didn’t make sense, and philosophies I believed in no longer resonated. His arrival shook everything up.

As I ferociously searched the internet to try to find some “parenting style” that did feel good to me, I came across The Continuum Concept. When I found it and started reading it, I could feel that this was THE book I was looking for. My whole body relaxed once it was in my hands and I started digesting it. As much as I loved that book, I could tell pretty quickly that I was going to need help applying it in this modern world. As I got back on the internet to find that someone, I of course came across Eliane’s work. And while reading the first article of hers I found, I again got that familiar feeling of this is THE person. Every single word she wrote seemed to hit straight to my heart, and I was like “yes! this is 100% it!”

Once my son got old enough, I did the Clean Parenting Course. Doing that course was on par for changing my life as having my first child. It's like someone finally helped me unlock my soul and helped me really see what the possibilities of life, love and relationships were. I felt I had the keys to becoming the mother and person I was destined to become, I learned so much about myself during that course.

Since then, I have worked intimately with Eliane and done the Deep Healing Program and Clean Relationships Program along with many, many healing sessions. Eliane has become somewhat of a “fairy godmother” in my life- someone who really gets me, is on my team, and is continually helping to guide me back to my greatest source of strength- myself. Between Eliane and the Sisterhood group, I feel like I have someone whom I wholeheartedly trust holding my hand along my journeys of parenting and life.
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My life, my children’s lives and my husband’s life have all been impacted in the best way possible. I will forever be grateful for Eliane and her continual support. She has really become like part of my family and I cannot imagine my life without her and her work."

RESOURCES:

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• Continuum Concept Resources, by Parenting For Wholeness 
• What Loving and Effective Parenting Looks Like - an Example from the Huxtable's, by Eliane 
• The #1 Question to Ask When Your Child 'Misbehaves', by Eliane 
• How Do I Stop Myself Midway When I'm Triggered? by Eliane 
• Creating Support For Our Continuum Concept Parenting Journey, by Eliane 

• ​Who's in Control? The Unhappy Consequences of Being Child-Centered, by Jean Liedloff 
• Restoring Harmony: A Mother's Story, by Abigail Warren 
• The Continuum Concept - It Works!!! by Eliane 
• The Quick Start Program, Parenting For Wholeness
• The Clean Parenting™ Program, by Parenting For Wholeness 


​REFERENCES:

• The Continuum Concept, by Jean Liedloff
• The Clean Parenting™ Program, by Parenting For Wholeness 
• The Key to Well-Behaved Children Who Listen to You, While Fully Respecting Them, by Eliane
• Parenting Can Be Easy?!? by Eliane 
• Does Your Child FEEL That You're On His Team? by Eliane 
• Why It's Critical That You Trust Your Children, by Eliane 
• Is This Really Possible?!? One Family's Experience of Natural Parenting, by Eliane 
• The Almost Magical Formula For Surprising Ease and Harmony in Your Family While Fully Honoring Your Children’s Spirits, by Eliane Sainte-Marie 

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I’ve read loads of wonderful parenting articles since founding Parenting For Wholeness a few years ago, and have yet to come across one on this topic.
 
Which surprises me because it’s one of the most powerful parenting concepts I teach, and it has a huge impact in the families of the participants in my Clean Parenting™ Program.
 
I don’t know if I came up with it on my own (just because it makes so much damn sense!) or if I read it somewhere when I was finding my way with parenting.
 
What I do know is it was key to my children being very responsive to my guidance, and even being what most people called (yuk!) obedient!
 
So let’s start by taking a moment for you to get a sense of what many children experience.
 
Take a moment to really feel into the following:
 
Imagine working for a boss who is unclear and gives you inconsistent directions and guidance.
 
How would that feel? How would you act in her presence?
 
Now imagine a boss who is clear, gives you exactly the information you need and is consistent in what she expects of you.
 
How does that feel? How would you act in her presence?
 
Now, how do you think your child feels with you?
 
Becoming clear in our communication with our children is key in enlisting their cooperation, having them take us seriously and listen to us.
 
It’s also key in them being able to relax into their lives, knowing they have a clear leader/parent to rely on.
 
And there’s one simple exercise you can do that will help you tremendously in being clearer in your parenting:
 
Making a distinction between PREFERENCES and NON-NEGOTIABLES.
 
The reason it’s important to get clear on this distinction is that those two situations should be handled differently. 
 
It’s also a huge help in becoming the clear benevolent leader our children need to be grounded, and to respect us and listen to us.
 
So let’s dig in.
 
I make a distinction between preferences, non-negotiables, and non-negotiables for you.
 
PREFERENCES
 
Preferences are things that you would really like your children to do (or not do), but: 

• you don’t feel strongly enough about to enforce 100 percent of the time
• may not be expected in other families you respect but are important to you
• are not inherently bad but you don’t personally like

Examples of those could be: 

• not using the word “stupid”
• not being loud in the house (assuming you don’t live in an apartment)
• keeping his/her room picked up
• being talked to in a certain way

 
NON-NEGOTIABLES
 
Non-negotiables are things like hurting others or animals, running across the street, destroying property and saying particularly hurtful things. 
 
They are about safety and teaching our children what’s socially appropriate. 
 
They are things you will enforce 100% percent of the time and that you will model. 
 
 
NON-NEGOTIABLES FOR YOU
 
There are things that are non-negotiables FOR YOU. Those are things that—although you know might be only a preference for other parents—are clearly a non-negotiable for you. 
 
This is about getting to know yourself and knowing what is really important to you—important enough that you’ll make it a priority to enforce and model it. These are things that need to happen in your family for you to feel good about it or for your needs to feel met. 
 
Examples of these could be: 

• your children not picking their noses
• keeping common areas clean
• loading dishes in the dishwasher after meals
• weaning a child before she is naturally ready 
• moving a child to a separate bed

VERY IMPORTANT: When trying to identify whether a situation is a non-negotiable or a preference for you, check inward to find out what’s true for you. This is not about knowing what’s right by any standards but about connecting with yourself, uncovering what’s true for you, being honest with yourself.
  
Here’s a wonderful example of this, which my now friend Mona Sanei shared in the Clean Parenting™ Program Facebook group once that light bulb went on for her: 

THE LENTIL INCIDENT

​"For a long time, I chose to let throwing food intentionally be a preference for my 18 month old daughter, because I just couldn't handle having it be a non-negotiable.

One day we were home, and I heated up a bowl of lentils. Knowing my daughter and how she loves to make messes, we went out on to the deck to eat so I didn't have to worry about clean up. At some point I turned around and there she was with over half the lentils having been thrown all over the kitchen floor. My gut reaction was to say, "why? why would you do that Livy??". It was so upsetting, but I stayed "strong" and proceeded to clean it all up and then GAVE her the bowl of the remaining lentils back. I turned around again to finish washing a dish and when I looked back at her, the rest of the lentils were on the floor and she was STEPPING on them!!! It zapped all the energy out of me to see that. I was so upset and not even mad at her. I let myself "go there". Really feel how upset I was, how defeated I felt, how helpless.

And then I had an ah ha moment. And my energy came back, full force, because I had made a discovery: throwing food is a non-negotiable for ME! It was the truth all along and now I could finally honor that. So I got to her level, looked her in the eye, and told her that throwing food is now a non-negotiable. I told her we needed to go into the kitchen because there was a mess I needed her to help me clean up. Since that time, things have really shifted at home. The energy is better. She still does throw food sometimes, but the number of incidents has drastically dropped.

The ability to be a leader was always in me and once I made my mind up to honor my non-negotiable, it was like second nature to lead her in that situation."
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​What gets many parents in trouble is not differentiating between making requests of their children when they prefer they would do something, versus giving them clear guidance on what is expected and just not acceptable in our culture, society or family. 

Not making this distinction is confusing to children.
 
Being clear on what is a preference for you versus what is a non-negotiable allows you to know exactly when to make a request (and accepting their ‘no’) versus when to give guidance (setting a limit or making sure to pursue a win-win solution.)
 
If this is resonating with you, I bet I can guess what you’re now wanting to know: “How do I handle non-negotiables, and how do I handle preferences?’
 
This is something we work on extensively in my Clean Parenting™ Program.
 
The truth is that there’s A LOT that goes into it.

Because the most important factor is to set the right foundation in your family. This is what creates goodwill and cooperation between all the family members.
 
(You can click here to request my FREE report which describes the four pillars of that foundation.)
 

Once the healthy and connected foundation is established, it’s pretty easy to develop the simple skills to expertly handle each circumstance.
 
But to not leave you hanging, here are some highlights to get you started, knowing there’s a lot more that goes into handling each.
 
HANDLING PREFERENCES:
 
If a situation is just a preference, ask your children to do what you want. If their answer is ‘no,’ you can either accept their ‘no,’ or get creative to inspire the behavior you want in a way that still honors them. You can look for win-wins so they feel good about accommodating your request.
 
HANDLING NON-NEGOTIABLES:
 
If a situation is a non-negotiable, set a firm limit, and plan on enforcing it 100% of the time. In many situations, once your children start getting that you mean business (there may be some adjustment period where things get worse before they get better,) it’s likely that just the clarity in your voice will lead to them listening, unless it clashes with something that's truly important to them.
 
(Of course if you’re reading me, I’m assuming you know that I would NEVER suggest you impose anything on your children that isn’t respectful of who there are, and ignores their needs.)
 
I plan on writing fully on both how to handle non-negotiables and how to handle preferences in the future. Make sure you’re on my email list if you want to be notified once those articles are published. You can get added to my list by requesting my report, which will give you a good foundation for this.
 
Meanwhile, see the recommended articles below.
 
Practically working on identifying non-negotiables and preferences, and learning how to handle each of them in an important part of the work we do in the Clean Parenting™ Program, my in-depth group coaching program which is designed to provide parents with the full peaceful parenting foundation.
 
(I’m already starting to fill my group of 12 which starts January 6th, and the early bird rate still applies for a short time. Email me so we can set up a time to meet on Skype, if you’re interested in participating.)

And now an exercise for you:
 
Take 3 things you regularly struggle with in your family. Then make a conscious decision on whether what you want in each situation is a non-negotiable or a preference.
 
Can you see how having that clarity could help you in those situations?

It can take time and some experimenting to get clear on what your non-negotiables are versus your preferences, especially if you tend not to value your own needs or be disconnected from your truth.

If that's the case, going through the process of getting clear on this will not only help your relationship with your children, but it will also be a wonderful process of getting to know and value yourself. Which if you ever work with me, you'll realize is what I'm most passionate about and my intention for you. :-)

​Lots of love to you and your family,

​WANNA GIVE BACK? Did you get value from this article? If so I would be incredibly grateful if you could share this article with your friends on Facebook (below) or Pinterest. I would LOVE help 

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While talking with Sarah this evening, I was hit by the heartbreak and loneliness that’s inherent in the path she’s chosen.

Like a large number of the people who are drawn to my work, Sarah came to me because she shares the parenting intention I had raising my daughters: she is committed to obliterating the generational pattern of dysfunction in her family. She is committed to her daughter never having to experience even a smidgen of what she did as child.

Yes, it can be done. My grown daughters are a living proof of it. They are free of all the addictions, low self-worth, dysfunctional relationships, etc, that plague all my siblings and I. And I know without a shadow of a doubt that Sarah’s daughter will be free of all that as well.

And yes, it’s wonderful and incredibly rewarding to have been able to successfully break this long pattern that’s present in both my parents’ families.

And I’m so so so grateful that all my daughters are free of the pain I still struggle to live through!

But there are unique challenges for those of us who have committed ourselves to this Herculean task.

Here are some of the things many of us have to live with, as our children grow up, especially in the early years of parenthood:
​

• Our family of origin doesn’t understand us. Though they’re ‘supposed to be’ our support system, as well as the people with whom many of us celebrate our holidays and birthdays, they have no understanding of and ability to relate to the thing we’re most passionate about and focused on. And we can’t even talk to them about what we’re doing because it would hurt them, they wouldn’t understand, or they’d even just attack us back for it.
• We are judged, and often outwardly criticized and ridiculed.
• Even though we’ve put tons of time researching and working out an optimal way of being with our children, people who have never spent any time researching about effective parenting feel free to make dire predictions for our children, fully believing they know better than us.
• Often times, the reason we looked for and committed ourselves to a more nurturing form of parenting is because we are highly sensitive, and we realized how damaged we were by the way we were parented. But being this sensitive, being criticized and judged is very painful, and often even debilitating.
• We are often pressured to justify our choices, even though our answers are rarely taken seriously.
• It’s hard to ask our family to treat our children in the way we want – for example to not tickle them, not pick them up without their permission, not call them 'good girl' or 'bad girl,' because they have no frame of reference or understanding of our reasons for wanting our children to be treated respectfully.
• We have a different set of values than our family! This can be incredibly painful to live with, and make our time with our family unpleasant to downright traumatic and repulsive.
• Our children will NEVER relate to us! Though this is what we so desperately want for our beloved children, it’s also incredibly hard and sad that the beings closest to us have no way of relating to the pain and inner challenges we live with.
• We’re re-inventing the wheel, having not experienced, and often not even witnessed the way we want to parent. So we often feel like we’re moving in the dark, knowing what we don’t want to do but being clueless as to what to do instead.
• We have to continually fight our conditioning, our default, which is to react to our children the way we were reacted to.
• We’re doing something incredibly difficult, while being weighed down with lots of baggage and issues, which make things that may be simple and even non-issues for others challenging for us.
• And we’re doing something absolutely incredible, what’s needed to create a world we would all love to live in, and for some of us no one even sees it.​

​And here’s something I shared with an incredibly brave and committed young mom in my Clean Parenting™ Program today. A bit of insight from a mom who’s made it through parenting and done loads of emotional healing work. This may apply to you as well if you’re resonated with this article so far:

“It is mind boggling to me what you've been able to do, given your history. You are incredibly strong, courageous and wise. I see in you something that a therapist has called in me a drive to wholeness. Even though we never received what we're trying to give our children, and even though we came from shit, a part of us for some reason knows what's possible. Has a vision or at least an inkling of what's whole and right, and we will not stop until we find it.
 
It's not an easy journey. We fall, lose it, go into depression. And then we somehow find our strength, fight, make headway, and release some of the baggage. 

Something I accepted in the past 2 years is that this is just my life journey. I'll likely never have the smooth, peaceful and reliably productive life I long for. Because of my past and because I'm an HSP (highly sensitive person,) those ups and downs are par for the course for me. Accepting it and being compassionate to myself, and cutting myself lots of slack when those lows happen has removed some of the edge of the pain for me.

WANNA GIVE BACK? Did you get value from this article? If so I would be incredibly grateful if you could share this article with your friends on Facebook (below) or Pinterest. I would LOVE help spreading the word about my work to people who could be positively impacted by it! 

WANT SUPPORT? I offer several programs to support moms both in parenting in alignment with their values, and in healing the trauma from their childhood. If you're interested in working with me, email me at [email protected], and we'll schedule a free 30 minute Strategy Session.

SUGGESTIONS ~ If you liked this article, you may also enjoy:
​

• Are You Treating Yourself In Ways You'd Never Dream Of Treating Your Children?
  
• What About Me...?
• The Biggest Mistake The Most Caring Moms Make
• How Do I Stop Myself Midway When I'm Triggered?
• The Secret Most Moms Don't Talk About  

• Parenting Can Be Easy?!?

It can be very challenging to parent in a way that’s different from the mainstream, which I’m guessing you’re probably doing if you’re reading this article. 

value, families who seem to ‘have it all together,’ or experts, you can find yourself asking if you’re actually ruining your children instead of doing what’s best for them.

It’s challenging because you’ve likely had no example of how you’re striving to parent and may not always know how to handle situations peacefully.

It can be challenging, sometimes even overwhelming and exhausting, to spend a large part of each day focused on meeting little ones’ needs. 

I want to share my experience with you for three reasons: 

1.  I hope it will give you the reassurance that you are NOT ruining your children by parenting them in an alternative way.

2.  I hope it will give you some inspiration that will fuel you to keep following your instincts and parenting in a natural way that’s attuned to your children.

3. I hope it will show you that the time and energy invested in meeting all your children's needs when they're little and becoming the parent you want to be are worth it beyond what you can even imagine! 

My 3 daughters and I are a living proof of it.

MY EXPERIENCE:

When my first daughter Cassandra was born, I went on a quest to find a parenting approach that would insure she would grow up feeling whole, loved, and knowing that she was intrinsically good.

I was obsessed. 

It just was not an option for me to have her experience even a smidgen of what I lived and still struggle to heal from: growing up feeling unloved and believing I was deeply flawed.

For the first 5 years of my parenting journey, all my attention and energy went into finding and integrating into my family an approach that felt 100% right. If anything felt even a little bit off, I’d keep searching and tweaking until it’d feel totally right. (My two main resources were all the friends I made through La Leche League and my parenting bible, The Continuum Concept.)

Some of the things I focused on doing with my 3 daughters were:

• Having all my interactions with them come from the knowing that they are intrinsically good.
• Treating them as allies, as though we’re on the same team.
• Being a clear benevolent leader they could learn from and in whose guidance they could relax and feel safe.
• Trusting them.
• Supporting them in fully being who they are.
• Not imposing my agenda on them or putting my needs ahead of theirs.
• Being honest with them and seriously taking their perspective into account, changing when I needed to.
• Knowing that they were a lot more capable than what most people would believe.
• Never using punishments or rewards as a way to manipulate their behavior.
• Never deciding for them what they should learn, but supporting them in following their own interests, which lead to unschooling.

• Allowing them to organically become independent at their own pace instead of pushing them to it.

​Once I felt solid in my parenting, five years after becoming a mother, I shifted my focus to personal growth and emotional healing, longing to have for myself what I was seeing in my daughters.

I lost interest in studying and talking about parenting, pursuing other interests instead.

I would say that from that point on, I didn’t really feel like I was parenting, but more like I was just living my life with my girls, if that makes any sense.

Until Cassandra turned 18.

January 21st 2011 was a profound day for me, a huge milestone. I found myself reflecting a lot that day. Thinking about what it meant to be the parent of an adult. How our relationship would change. How I felt about sending her out into the world on her own, given that she’d picked a college 1200 miles away from home.

And I realized something: I HAD ABSOLUTELY NO CONCERNS ABOUT HER FUTURE!!! No concerns about her ability to find her way and her happiness in the world. No concerns about her ability to keep herself safe. 

And I was struck by the contrast with what I imagined most of her friends’ parents must be feeling as their children became adults and moved away from home. 

And then further struck to realize I felt equally unconcerned about the future of my two younger daughters!

That day birthed what’s become one of my missions in life: to give as many parents as possible a vision of what’s possible with children. And information and support in achieving it.

Now before moving forward and talking about all the positive things I experienced in my family, I want to stress that I am in NO WAY a perfect parent, nor are my children perfect! I could say a lot more about this, but this isn’t the topic of this article. You can read my full confession to that here.

So here’s what I HAVE experienced in my family:

• I truly felt like I was done parenting with each of them somewhere between the age of 12 and 14. By that age they were fully able to make their own decisions and take responsibility for their lives. I would still have conversations with them, offer my opinion, or reminders, but they were fully in charge of their lives.

• I experienced no teenage rebellion or ‘acting out.’ I may not have slept through the night when they were babies and toddlers, but I had no issues getting a good night's rest in the years when ​ some parents struggle to sleep out of fear of the trouble their children might be getting into.  

• They weren’t susceptible to peer pressure. Because they felt good about who they were and their needs were met, they weren’t tempted to do things that felt wrong to them I order to fit in. How cool is that?!?

• They easily and assertively stand up for themselves, even to people in positions of authority.

• Academic success in school: They each chose to start public school at ages 10 and 9. I never made them do homework, expected that they attend every day, or pushed them to have ‘good’ grades. Yet their report cards showed a large majority of A’s, Audrey graduated high school as valedictorian of her class and is attending NYU, a top US college, and Cassandra graduated college with honors, in 3 years instead of the usual 4.
• No fear of public speaking: Compared to the other results I listed, this feels like such a small one, yet it’s so telling to me! I was shocked to hear that when Cassandra had to speak in front of the whole school, in high school, she wasn’t nervous at all (considering I was so petrified of it that I remember almost passing out in school when doing an oral presentation in French!) She didn’t even understand why she would be. I was further amazed to hear that neither of her sisters had any nervousness about it either.

• But most importantly I’ve fully achieved my goal! What I most wanted for them was for them to have an unshakable sense of self, to be self-confident, inner motivated, self-sufficient and have the ability to find their own happiness in the world. I can say with a resounding ‘YES’ that I’ve achieved it, in spades, with all 3 of them. The thing that most touches me now, looking at them, is a sense of them that I can best describe as unencumbered.

I hope you get that my motivation for sharing all this is in no way to make you feel bad if you’re not living the same thing I did nor to make myself seem better than you in any way.
 
I JUST DESPERATELY WANT PARENTS TO KNOW THAT THIS IS POSSIBLE!!!

I SO want to encourage you to pursue this parenting approach if it resonates with you!  

Yes, in many ways it’s a lot of work in the early years. And it takes incredible DETERMINATION to unlearn our conditioning and fully transition to a loving, instinctual and natural way of parenting!

I am eternally grateful to the young mom I was 24 years ago, who fully committed herself to it!!! Because it’s paid off for me, my daughters, and all whom they’ll touch a million fold!

If you believe in this approach with all your heart and want help so you can also experience with your children what I described with mine, click here to see if my Clean Parenting program is right for you.

I offer this program 3 times a year and each group is limited to 8 participants. Check the program page for the date of the next group, a lot of testimonials, program information and to reserve your spot.

I'd love to work with you if this program is right for you! ♥

Lots of love,

I was reflecting yesterday on something I feel REALLY STRONGLY about, which I want to share with you today. 

Read or listen to the audio version.

her daughter take a sweater in case she got cold, in spite her daughter's assurance that she'd be okay.

Though this mom is also a very loving, attached and attuned parent, she is a lot more directive and protective with her daughter than I've been with my three. 

At some point in our conversation, whilst praising my parenting, work and the results I've had with my daughters, she said something that inspired this article.

She said that she didn't allow her daughter to be as free as I allow mine, because she wasn't willing to experience the potential consequences of that.

Her statement really stayed with me.

I found myself pondering it a lot afterwards.

And felt compelled to express my perspective.

What I feel very strongly about and could have replied to her this wonderful mom is:

"I'm not willing to experience the consequences of NOT trusting my daughters. Of making their decisions for them. Of having them rely on me to guide their decisions and monitor what they do."

Giving them freedom to make their own decisions is what's allowed them to remain connected to their inner guidance, instead of them shifting their focus outward, to what others tell them. 

The only person who will always be with them, whom they can always count on is themselves. 

Therefore, I've seen it as my job as a parent to nurture and strengthen THAT relationship above any other.

Trusting my daughters to make their own decisions while they still lived with me allowed them to develop their experience while I still had influence on them, and could still give them my opinion and feedback.

By the time they move away from me at 18 (Cassandra has been in Florida for 3 years and Audrey is heading to New York City in the fall) they have been making all their decisions by themselves for a long time, therefore are very well equipped to make them.

I've made a point of telling my daughters that the only person they can fully trust is themselves. 

Above even myself and their dad. 

That there are times (this mostly happened when they were little) when as parents we have to make decisions for them or that impact them which don't feel right to them. And that we're not necessarily making the best decision. 

That we are fallible.

That it doesn't mean that because we're the ones making the decision we're right and they're wrong. 

I wanted to make sure not to skew their perception of what felt true and right to them, by telling them they were wrong. 

I just presented my perspective and opinion, taking responsibility for it and not making it 'the truth.'

As Byron Katie says, no one can ever know what's right for another person's path.

And no one else can ever fully know what's true for them. 

Why do I believe that the only person my daughters can fully trust is themselves?

Because no one else ever has as much information about them and their specific situation as they do. 

No one else has access to their instincts and their inner guidance, which are the most reliable resources we have (when they're not covered up with crap from all our conditioning.)

Our inner guidance is our connection to our drive towards wholeness, towards what we know is right and good, when we're not in some form of protective mode.

It's our connection to presence, spirit, our higher self, God, or however we experience the source of life.

It's our connection to massive amounts of information, of which we can only intellectually access a small fraction. 

I've encouraged my daughters to trust their own opinions and guidance in terms of who to trust, whose advice to listen to, which expert or more experienced person to turn to when they need help or additional information.

I've encouraged them to be discerning when reading or listening to others and to never blindly trust what someone says.

There's a whole people who was trained to blindly follow what the authority said. And look at the massacre that ensued!

What if the Germans had grown up been encouraged to trust themselves...?

I CAN trust my daughters to make the right choices for themselves because they've always been trusted to do so, therefore are experienced in it. 

And because they are honest - this is so key in making good decisions!

I've encouraged their self honesty, as well their honesty with me, by never punishing them, trying to manipulate them to fulfill my own agenda, or making them experience any negative consequence for telling the truth.

A self honest person tends to make good decisions because they're not hiding behind excuses and delusions.

she was sharing with me an experience that happened to her recently.

She had taken a road trip to my home town of Montreal with her best friend over spring break. 
​
One night, the girls met a young man in a comedy club and spent some time hanging out with him. He was nice, normal, smart, easy on the eyes and they thoroughly enjoyed his company.

He invited them to meet up again the following night, but Audrey's friend declined. She was afraid that something negative might happen from hanging out with a stranger.

But there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that it would have been fine.

Why?

Because Audrey felt completely comfortable with him. She would have KNOWN if something was off about him. 

And she would have made sure that they met in a setting that felt comfortable to her if she didn't. 

I completely trust her ability to size up people and know who she can trust and who she can't. 

And her level headedness in what she decides to engage in.

Having been raised completely differently, her friend needs to depend on guidelines to feel safe.

And made them miss out on an enjoyable experience because she was acting on something she's been told in the past instead of being free to evaluate the actual situation.

What a bummer for Audrey!

Now I'd like to switch to a completely different age group and share another story which relates to the topic of trusting children. 

A story that I told an acquaintance many years ago, before children were even on her mind, and which she told me recently is what she still remembers me by.

Once, when she was 3, Gaby was standing on the kitchen counter, getting something in a cabinet. 

When she was done, she asked me if she could jump off.

My reply to her was "I don't know, can you?"


How could I possibly know what her body is able to do? I'M NOT IN IT!

She turned the focus to herself and realized that she didn't feel comfortable doing so.

And asked me if I'd take her down.

If I had told her she couldn't, she would have learned to trust me instead of her own feeling of rightness. ​

WANNA GIVE BACK? Did you get value from this article? If so I would be incredibly grateful if you could share this article with your friends on Facebook (below) or Pinterest. I would LOVE help spreading the word about my work to people who could be positively impacted by it! 

SUGGESTIONS: If you liked this article, you may also enjoy:

• The Key to Well-Behaved Children Who Listen to You, While Fully Respecting Them
• Should I Let My Child Play With A Machete - AUDIO, on The Continuum Concept and Safety
• Does Your Child FEEL That You're On His Team?
• Could You Be TOO Child-Centered?
• Could Your Struggle Just Be Caused By An Unrealistic Expectation? 
• Would You Like This for Your Children? One Family's Results of Natural Parenting

Would you give just about anything for everyone in your family to be happy and get along? Read on for a strategy and an attitude that have the potential of making a HUGE difference in your life!

Building the muscle of automatically looking for win-win solutions is a simple exercise that can change your life. It opens the door to the possibility of everyone in your family being happy and having their needs met. 

Having your focus on looking for win-win solutions will go a long way towards your children (and spouse!) feeling like you’re on their team, which is so core to having harmony with your children and them maintaining their sense of wholeness.

('Being on the same team' is one of the four pillars of Clean Parenting™. Click here for a report that describes all four pillars.)

It will ensure that you consider your children in how you approach the situation, AS WELL AS YOURSELF!

Unfortunately in our society, the vast majority of parents live most of their lives either considering the children’s needs and preferences at the exclusion of the parents’, or the other way around.

THE ONLY WAY TO HAVE A TRULY HAPPY FAMILY LIFE IS TO HAVE EVERYONE'S NEEDS TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT. Re-orienting your thinking in the way I’m describing here is a very simple and effective way to do so.

A lovely side benefit you’ll find when that becomes your general orientation, is that your children will be much more likely to accept your “no's.” This will happen because they’ll really KNOW, in their gut, that you’re on their side and rooting for what they want. They’ll therefore easily trust that there’s a good reason for your no’s.

Here are several examples of looking for win-win’s:
​

• “You really want a snack right now AND I’ve been working on dinner and would like you to be hungry for it. What could we do?” 
• “You want me to take you to the shopping mall right now AND I’m really tired and just feel like vegging. Any ideas so we can both have what we want?”
• “You’re having so much fun playing at home AND we need food for dinner. What could we do?”
• A mom I work with was overwhelmed by her very active 5-year-old son running around the house. He didn’t listen to her request to stop. I suggested she briefly join in his running before asking him to stop, to be playful with him. The fact that his mom got on his team and joined in made him much more open when she then asked him to stop, which he did easily. This is a great example of a parent taking responsibility for her preference.
• That same mom was asked by her son to do something late one night. She said she’d like him to be able to do it, but it was too late. She suggested they write the activity down on a to-do list for the next morning, to make sure they didn’t forget. 

Many times, parents come to me saying something like:

“Eliane, I'm not sure what to do because when my child asks me for a snack as I'm cooking dinner. I don't want to say 'no' and have him go hungry, but at the same time I'm putting effort into making a dinner he'll like and I want him to still be hungry for it! What should I do?"

If you’ve worked with me already, you know how I respond, right?

Because it’s what I answer probably 90 percent of the time!

“How about you tell HIM exactly what you just told me, instead of telling me?”

This truly can work like magic. I urge you to try it!

If your child truly feels that you’re on her team, when you speak to her in this way, she’ll most likely be open to hearing you and want to come up with something that works for you as well.

Enlisting her in coming up with the "action plan," assuming that you genuinely want her to be happy with it (and this is key!) will AUTOMATICALLY make her feel that you’re on her team.

It’s very possible that she’ll come up with an idea you may not even have thought of!

I may not know your child, but I’m guessing that she’s creative and impresses you regularly with her ideas. Take advantage of that and make it work for your family!

So in the next few days, notice what you tell your friends and spouse relative to a challenge you're having with your child. And see if you could just talk to your child about it directly instead of to a third party!

Another benefit of talking to your child about the dilemma is that it forces you to put it into words. And as you've likely also experienced, often times all that's needed to find a solution is to clearly verbalize the issue.

How about applying this with babies and not yet verbal toddlers?

And if your child is too young to work something out with you, I suggest that you STILL tell him or say out loud, in the midst of the situation, what your dilemma is.

This will help for three reasons:

     A. Depending on your child’s age, she may understand some of it. Children tend to understand MUCH MORE than what we think they do!

     B. Even if she doesn’t understand the words, she’ll sense and understand the intention of what you’re saying.

     C. It’s a way of training yourself to look for win/win situations, and to think outside of the box. It’s a way to reset your (most likely) negative conditioning to an approach that is more conducive to having harmony in your family and meeting everyone’s needs.

If this isn’t already how you handle situations in your family, I really hope that you’ll try it and would love to hear how it works for you once you do!
​

And if this article and the Clean Parenting™ approach speak to you, and you’d like support in integrating it in your family life, check out my QUICK START PROGRAM!

This article is part of Module 8’s assignment, in which you’re asked to ponder this concept, work on applying it to each of the items on the list of challenging situations you created at the beginning of the program, and get to exchange about it with all the other committed parents in the Facebook group who are also working through the program alongside you.

WANNA GIVE BACK? Did you get value from this article? If so I would be incredibly grateful if you could share this article with your friends on Facebook (below) or Pinterest. I would LOVE help spreading the word about my work to people who could be positively impacted by it! 

Are you surprised at how much energy and attention your child requires? Do you sometimes feel exhausted by it?

Are you puzzled at how demanding she is even though you strive so hard to meet all her needs?

That she sometimes doesn’t even seem like a happy child in spite of all you’re doing?

Are you discouraged that even though you model respectful behavior, your child is not respectful, compassionate and at times even pleasant to be around?

This a common issue I notice in many of the parents who come to me.

They are committed peaceful parents.
​
They’ve put a lot of time and energy in learning how to be the best possible parents to their children.

Many are highly motivated because they don’t want their children to experience the painful childhood they themselves experienced.

Yet they don’t have the child the peaceful parenting books promised. And they’re tired of bending over backwards trying to please their children. They believe somehow that parenting doesn’t have to be that hard, yet they don’t know how to get there.

Does that sound like you too?

Then it’s very possible that the problem is you’re too child centered.

That in an attempt to make sure that your children’s needs are met, you’re too focused on them instead of being the grounded leader they need and giving them the space to have their own life experience.

In order for our children to feel secure, it’s very important that they feel we are in charge, we know what we’re doing, that we have things under control, that they can rely on us.

(For a full discussion on this important topic, read my article The Key to Well-Behaved Children Who Listen to You, While Fully Respecting Them or listen to my interview Why Leadership Is the Missing Link in Conscious Parenting.)

If we turn to them for guidance on how to live our lives, spend of a lot of our days focused on them, looking for their input on most things, they will not have the sense that we’re in charge. They then won’t be able to relax into the safety of knowing that someone has things under control. 

They need that knowing to be able to and free to focus on their own lives, their own experiences. 

It’s important that we create lives that feel good to us, in which we focus on our own tasks and interests, and our children are on the periphery. 

What we do should be compatible with our children, but our lives are not about them and their activities. 

Having our children be our entertainment causes a shift from their intrinsic motivation and their own connection to their activities, to an extrinsic motivation where they aim to please us and get validation from us. It cuts off their self-connection. 

It leads to children who want a lot of attention, feedback and approval on whatever they do, who can’t just appreciate what they enjoy doing for its own sake but are dependent on the validation of another to enjoy it. 

This is often the cause of children who feel very demanding.
​

​This is something that happened a lot with my children when they were young, when we visited my family in Montreal, for a few weeks at a time. We’d just hang out in the family room a lot and everybody would comment and “ooh” and “ah” at everything my children did.

They would as a result of it often be a lot more demanding of attention when we got back home, and it would take some adjustment for them to come back to just doing things of their own motivation. 

It’s also very important for children to have space to be, do, learn and explore without any interference. This allows them to discover who they are, what they like, to learn, to grow into themselves.

Showing your children more benign neglect could be a very beneficial thing to their sense of self, and free you up to have more time and space for yourself!

So how do you apply this in your life when you’re often alone at home with them, and that there are limited ways to meet their social needs?

Please know that I’m not saying that you should never play with children or engage in their activities.

However, contrary to popular opinion, it is definitely NOT necessary to play with your children to meet their needs and build a strong connection with them. 

Because of the artificial set-up of most of our families, our children are more reliant on us for their social needs than if we lived in ideal tribal or community situations.

It’s perfectly appropriate for us to do things with them, as long as we genuinely enjoy them, but those things need to comprise just one part of our overall enjoyable lives that include a lot of our own interests. 

I played countless games of Skip-bo, Rummikub, cards, as well as read books and did puzzles with my girls. 

As long as I enjoyed it and didn't make it my job. 

What I saw as my job was to ensure that their social needs were met.

While many toddlers are happy being home alone with mom and maybe some siblings, some require more social engagement in order to have their social needs met. And most children 4 and older require regular time with children and adults other than their parents and primary caretakers to feel socially satisfied.

One guideline I have to determine if you're being child-centered or not is to check your energy when engaging with your child. 

  ·  Do you feel grounded in yourself or is your energy with your child?

  ·  Are you being condescending and cutesy with your child or engaging from a clean place?

  ·  Are you resenting giving him attention or are you genuinely interested or eager to interact with him?

​Because this is a feeling thing, it's a bit tricky to describe, so I encourage you to just notice where your energy is when playing with your children.

HOW CHILD-CENTEREDNESS FEELS

Now I want to give you an experience of what child-centeredness feels like.

Have you ever been in a co-dependent relationship or seen someone close to you in one? This is what child-centeredness is like.

Read the following paragraph. Then close your eyes to feel into what I describe.

Imagine you’re in a romantic partnership with someone who absolutely adores you and/or is afraid of losing you. He makes his whole life about you and is every moment focused on how what he does impacts you. He asks your advice and permission on everything. He doesn’t want to do anything without including you. He's afraid of hurting you. He makes sure that any action he takes will not impact you negatively in any way. 

Imagine what this would feel like, beyond the initial enjoyment of having someone’s full attention. Imagine living this way for years.... 

Once you’ve felt into it, now imagine the following: 

You’re married to someone with whom you have a great connection, and you share a deep love for each other. Your spouse is a happy person who isn’t reliant on you for happiness. He also sees you as a whole and competent person. Though he loves spending time with you, participating in shared interests, he’s also happy in his own work, hobbies and other relationships. He deeply revels in your company, not because he needs it, but because of the quality of your connection. If you’re not available to spend time with him because of other activities you’re involved in, he happily finds something else to do. You share a home and a life but are still two independent people. 

How does that feel? 

Which of those do you most resembles what you have with your children?

If you have elements of co-dependency, what’s something you could do to move towards a healthier relationship with them? 

FAMILY-CENTEREDNESS

What I propose, instead of being child-centered, is to be what I call ‘family-centeredness.’

The goal of family-centeredness is to find a way of living, and activities that meet everyone’s needs as much as possible. 

To create a life that everyone enjoys, that has room for everyone’s interests.

Where there’s room for each person’s individuality and wholeness within the context of the loving and supportive family.

Of course, with babies and young children who are still dependent on the parents, some activities may be unavailable to parents for a few years. But it’s still important to create a life for yourself that you enjoy as well, and very possible even while meeting your children’s needs.

You deserve to be happy and have your needs met too. ♥

With much love,

P.S.: For more on this topic, make sure to read the comment section of this article. I've shared some additional ideas and resources, and asked 2 moms who completed my Clean Parenting™ program and mastered this principe to share here their advice after seeing them post it in a Facebook group.

FOR HELP PARENTING in a way that meets your children's needs AND is not child-centered, click the button below to request my FREE report:  

The Almost Magical Formula for surprising EASE and HARMONY in your family while fully honoring your  children’s spirits.

​For support in learning to parent in a way that fully honors yourself as well as your children, check out my Clean Parenting™ Program.

There’s one premise we need to be clear on before I divulge that tip. And it’s that children are innately good.

I know you believe this, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.

But it’s one thing to believe it intellectually, and it’s a WHOLE other thing to actually be able to parent from it, moment by moment!

What I’m going to talk about here guides you to parent from that place.

(For a thorough discussion on believing that our children are innately good AND cooperative, request my report 4 Ways to Create Ease With Your Child. It’s the first one.)

The thing is that once you truly know that your child’s innate nature is good, know it in your bones, when they act out, it will be obvious that it comes from a place of something being ‘off.’

So grounded in this knowing, the question you’ll ask yourself is:

"WHY are they behaving this way?"

Not in a "Why in the hell are they doing this?" way, but with genuine curiosity, wanting to really understand what’s going on inside your beloved child.

And then you’ll be able to address THAT. The real cause of the behavior or the situation.

You’ll be able to address the underlying issue instead of just controlling the behavior. Like healing the actual cause of an illness instead of just taking a pill to mask the symptoms.

You’re going to understand that there’s a valid reason they're acting that way and you’ll start the detective work to uncover it.
 
You'll be asking the 'why' question so you can HELP them, not just to correct the behavior or the result of it, or to fix them.

Here are 10 questions you can ask yourself to help you figure out WHY your child is acting the way they are:

✔ What information do they need to shift their behavior of their own choice? “Oh honey, if you pick those flowers we won’t have them to keep our yard beautiful anymore.” “When you pull on the dog’s tail, it hurts him, just like it would hurt you if I was pulling on your ear.”

✔ Are my expectations of them realistic in this situation? Are you expecting an 18 month old to want to sit on a chair for 30 minutes while having dinner, when their whole drive at that age is towards motor development? Are you expecting a 4 year old to let you talk uninterrupted when they don’t have something engrossing to do or haven't had much connection time with you recently? (For an enlightening perspective on children interrupting, listen to this audio.)

✔ Do they have a need that’s not being met and needs to be attended to? Are they tired or hungry, and in need of food or sleep, in order to no longer feel depleted and be able to cope with life? Have they been cooped up in an apartment for two days and in dire need of open spaces and loud running around? Do they have food sensitivities yet have been eating triggering foods?

✔ Do they have an emotion or experience that needs to be processed? Did they throw down their cup because they're feeling frustrated? Did they yell at you because they're feeling overwhelmed by all they have to do to get ready for school? Are they acting out because they feel displaced by their new sibling?

✔ Are they responding to the way people around them are acting or feeling? Have you been feeling rushed and barking out directions at them instead of connecting with them while making your requests? Have you and your spouse been arguing and they're feeling uncomfortable? Have you been especially busy and preoccupied recently?

✔ How can I respond so they truly FEEL that I'm on their team and not an adversary out to talk them out of what they want or feel? Using a kind voice and helping them come up with a positive way to deal with the situations are examples of responses that will make them feel that you’re on their team.

✔ How can I state what's appropriate in this situation while honoring their feeling and need? “I know you get really angry when your little sister breaks your Lego project, but you need to tell her with your words that you’re angry, not by hitting her.” “I know it’s really hard not to pick those pretty flowers. We can pick some of those pretty leaves if you want, or we can go throw the basketball together."

✔ Am I willing to set a clear limit and find a way to positively and consistently enforce it so they take me seriously in the future? For children (especially young children) to learn what they can and can’t do, it needs to be clear and consistently enforced. Generally if you let them do something one time, or occasionally when you’re too tired to enforce the limit and help them find something else to do, they’ll keep doing it. And they'll learn not to believe what you tell them.

✔ What response will get me the long term result I want? It may seem easier to send a child who's hit his sibling to his room. But the long term effect will be that he won’t be any more prepared to deal with the situation the next time it happens. And you punishing him instead of helping him deal with his feelings will damage his connection to you, which will impact the amount of influence you have on him. (There's so much more that could be said on this subject! I guess I’ll need to write more about this soon. :-) )

✔ How can I address the cause of the behavior instead of the symptom? Your focus really needs to go to the cause of the ‘misbehavior,’ because it’s where the true resolution of it will come from. Dealing only with the behavior is likely to do very little to prevent it from occurring again, will not address the root cause which IS a problem your child is experiencing and needs support in resolving, and is likely to damage your relationship with him.

(For a convenient CHECKLIST of those questions, which you can post on your fridge for easy access when you really need them, click the button below.)

There are two general guidelines that I recommend you ALWAYS keep in mind, when your child 'acts out:'

    1.  Address the cause of the behavior instead of the symptom, otherwise you’re really not resolving anything.

    2.  Make sure that your response will get you the long term result you want and isn’t just a convenient quick fix which will end up backfiring in the long run.

WANNA GIVE BACK? Did you get value from this article? If so I would be incredibly grateful if you could share this article with your friends on Facebook (below) or Pinterest. I would LOVE help spreading the word about my work to people who could be positively impacted by it! 

FOR HELP ON PARENTING from a place of knowing that you're children are innately good, request my FREE report: The Almost Magical Formula for surprising EASE and HARMONY in your family while fully honoring your children’s spirits.

Do you ever feel you have to make a choice between parenting peacefully and having well-behaved children who listen to you? 

Or having a sense of order in your home?

Click PLAY to listen to the audio version of this article.

Or even though you don’t believe in coercive and authoritarian parenting, do you sometimes just wish you did so your children would do what you say? Even obey you?

Well I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to choose.

It IS possible to have well-behaved children who listen to you while fully honoring and respecting them.

What I’m talking about here is not obedient children who blindly follow any directions but children who trust you and know in their bones that you’re on their team, and therefore WANT to listen to you.

One thing I've sadly found through working with many peaceful, attachment, unschooling and Continuum Concept families, is that many of them end up giving up on the idea of effectiveness in their parenting, because they don’t believe it can happen in a way that’s respectful of their beloved children.

They don't want to squash their spirits.

They don’t want to control them.

They don't want to be authoritarian.

They don't want to do to their children what was done to them when they were children.

Sometimes chaos ends up reigning in those families. It's challenging to make anything happen.

And eventually the parents snap and respond to their children in ways they promised themselves they'd never do.

Does this ever happen to you?

I'm here to tell you that you don't have to give up on effectiveness to fully respect your children and to honor their spirits!

On the contrary, grounding yourself in Clean Parenting, which is highly effective because it taps into children's innate desire to cooperate and learn from their elders, is actually doing them a favor and meeting needs which aren't when we're afraid of offering clear, needed and appropriate guidance.
​

How would that feel?

And now imagine that you have a local guide who is there to help you acclimate. Would you do whatever you want, or would you check with that trusted person to find out what's appropriate?

Would that person be controlling you or helping you adapt to the culture?

As far as that guide goes, would you prefer someone who is afraid to give you information, who is apologetic and who avoids giving you directions as much as possible? Or would you want someone who knows you well, knows what you already know and what you haven’t encountered yet, and matter-of-factly presents you with the information you need when you need it? 

I’m hoping you got a clear sense of what I mean by being a benevolent leader by doing this reflection.

Being a leader as a parent is tapping into the natural order of things, from an evolutionary perspective, in which children look to their elders to learn about the world and for guidance on how to conduct themselves. 

In our society parents tend to either be: 

1) AUTHORITARIAN, in a way that doesn’t really respect children and meet their needs, and damages their sense of self 

OR

2) PERMISSIVE, because they really want to honor and trust their children and not do to them what their own parents did. Yet those permissive parents often find themselves wavering between the two approaches because they can’t find something that works and is in alignment with their values.

The thing is that young children don't have the experience nor the big picture in mind to make decisions, in many situations. Therefore it is normal and healthy for us to make those decisions for them, for our family. This organically and quickly shifts as they get older and grow in their ability to make decisions.

At the same time it’s critically important that we guide them in a way that is totally respectful, nurtures their sense of self, and doesn’t in any way damage our relationship with them.

Here’s what it looks like:

• It’s really a way of being, a stance where we are clear, loving and grounded in ourselves.
• We deeply understand that our children are eager to contribute and cooperate.
• We know that they are innately caring, compassionate, responsible, loving, etc., so that we don’t have to coerce them into any way to get them to act the way we’re directing them.
• We know that they want and need to learn from us how to function in our society.
• We completely respect and trust them.
• We always take their needs into account.
• And from this place we offer information matter-of-factly, knowing that they’ll welcome it and act on it.
• We don’t pussy foot around setting limits or telling them not to do something because we don’t fear that it’s going to negatively impact them.
• Nowhere in our words or attitude is there a hint that they’re bad or wrong.
• It’s so understood in the relationship that it's our place to teach our child that they automatically look for our feedback when not sure how to do something.
• If they are doing something that’s not appropriate, one look will be enough to understand and shift their behavior because of the level of trust that’s present.
• Often, all that’s needed is a look,  (This is isn’t in any way done in a judgmental or shaming perspective, but from a very deep mutual understanding that it’s the parent’s job to show the child the way.)

​

Watch this video of my 27 year old daughter demonstrating how she used Clear Benevolent Leadership to a boy in one of her coaches' gymnastics classes (as well as to see what a child parented in the way I teach looks like as an adult - proud mama moment here. ♥)

​
What I’m describing here may seem utopic, but I guarantee that it’s possible. It is the trickiest things I teach (which I’m eternally grateful to Jean Liedloff, author of The Continuum Concept for teaching me!) because it’s not something most of us have had any modeling of. But when it clicks into place with my clients is when I suddenly hear how totally easy their life also gets! 

It does take work to integrate, but I promise that once your leadership is established, your life will be so much easier! It might be even straight up easy, as mine was, so it’s well worth the time and focus to achieve it. And it is well worth doing any inner work you need to do around this to clear what’s in your way of embodying it. 

In order for this firm, clear and benevolent leadership to work, the following HAS to be present: 

• Your children need to fully trust you and fully feel that you’re on their team. From that place it’s easy to guide them because they are open to you. They KNOW you’re with them and not against them, so you can easily tap into their innate desire to learn and cooperate. 
• You need to know and trust that they genuinely want and need to learn from you. That you teaching them the social ways is welcome, needed and truly beneficial to them. 
• You need to know that they NEED leadership and that your firm guidance will not harm them or their sense of independence and autonomy. On the contrary, it will give them the inner freedom they need to actually grow in these areas! 
• ​You need to deeply respect your child and what his needs and important preferences are. You need to honor his needs and what matters to him as you guide him. This will insure that he’ll trust you and want to follow your guidance, and that he won't be in any way harmed by your firm guidance.

• You don’t really hate your sister, you love her!
• You don’t want to hit your friend!
  
• Don’t you want some salad instead of French fries? (When you clearly KNOW that he wants fries!)
  
• But you’ll be so much warmer if you wear your winter coat than if you wear this trendy sweater!
  

Have you ever said any of those?

I want to acknowledge here that I KNOW you likely had the best of intentions when you did! But this unfortunately only backfires on you.

Here’s what you can do instead, which will make your child feel that you’re on his team, and will allow him to feel heard and that his inner experience matters:

• Empathize with him: “You really love French fries, don’t you? Don’t you wish you could just eat them every day, at every meal?”
• Look for win/win situations, something that will work for both of you.
  

(For more tips on positive things you can say to your children, refer back to my Checklist: 10 Positive Things You Can Do Instead Of Yelling at Your Child.)

You’ll be amazed at how differently your child responds to you if he feels that you’re on his team, and that how he feels matters to you.

He’ll be much more open to hearing what you have to say, and to coming up with a solution you’re both happy with.

It will make him open up to being on YOUR team.

And it will give you both an opportunity to explore any painful and confusing feelings he’s experiencing which led him to say things you would have preferred he didn’t, such as him hating his sister or wanting to hit his friend.

For help on parenting from a place of being on the same team and using empathy to connect with your child and help him process negative emotions, request my FREE report: The Almost Magical Formula for surprising EASE and HARMONY in your family while fully honoring your children’s spirits.


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• Make a huge difference in the happiness of your children with this incredibly simple but powerful tip!
  
• Do You Believe Your Children Want to Do the Right Thing?

​As you may know, one thing I'm incredibly passionate about, and feel is part of my mission in life, is sharing the sometimes controversial message that parenting CAN be easy! 

And I wish I could inject every parent who in any way also believes it is possible (or even just wants to believe it!) with the commitment to attain it. 

This belief and my commitment to attaining it are what allowed me to eventually reach the place of ease I speak of in my family. They are also what supported me in reaching my parenting goal of bringing to adulthood three daughters whose spirits are mostly intact and are incredibly successful in the ways that most matter to them.

I want to share with you today the journey of a lovely mom who participated in my Clean Parenting™ Program.

I'd like you to read her experience because it's a concrete example of what CAN happen when parents fully commit to 'cleaning up' their parenting. And it also shows how quickly the transformation can happen.

And yes, in a way this post is a promotion for my program but I almost don't care (still working on this!) if it comes off as pushy because this program gets results! (You can read many more testimonials from parents who have participated in it on the program page.)

And I want as many families and children as possible to get to experience those results!!!

I want parents to enjoy being parents, to have ease and harmony in their interactions with their children.

I want for all children to grow up whole, unencumbered by the baggage (which I personally still struggle with daily and fuels me to keep doing this work) that unfortunately gets passed on when we parent less than 'cleanly.'

I'm hoping this story may inspire you to take the step of fully committing yourself to getting to ease and harmony in your family, whether through this program or any other path that works for you.

What are your thoughts after reading this? Is this something that you're not experiencing in your family but also long for? Wonder if it's possible for you?

It very well might be.

Is it easy to get there? No. THAT can take a lot of work and effort. And unwavering commitment.

But it IS possible. It was for me and I see more and more parents experiencing it as well as they learn to put into practice the fundamental principles that I work on with them in my program.

If you're wondering if the program would work for you, you can schedule a free chat with me through the sign-up form on the program page.

I offer this program 3 times a year and each group is limited to 10 participants. Check the program page for the date of the next group, a lot of testimonials, program information and to reserve your spot.

If you want to learn more about what leads to such ease in parenting, request my FREE report, 
The Almost Magical Formula For Surprising EASE and HARMONY in Your Family While Fully Honoring Your  Children’s Spirits. 
​

​And to read testimonials from more moms who have experienced transformation in their parenting, to get information on the Clean Parenting™ Program, and to schedule your free session, click here.
​

A common question I’m asked is ‘how do I change my reaction midway when I’m triggered?’

Changing a behavior midway, whether for us or for our children, can be extremely challenging when we’re feeling triggered.

So often, my answer to this question is to just do the best you can in the moment, ride out the situation as best you can, and plan on reflecting on it afterwards.

THEN, take the time, once you’re calm and have a few minutes to yourself to reflect on it.

(I do promise to give you some strategic tips at the end of the article.)

• Ask yourself what was at play when the situation occurred. 
  
• Come up with a more effective way of handling it in the future
  
• Ask yourself if there’s something that would have needed to be set up differently to prevent the situation from happening in the first place.
  
• Talk with your children about what would have prevented the situation from happening and what can be done to prevent it in the future. 
  
• Apologize to your children if needed.
  

It can be hard to change a situation midway, once you’re triggered or your children’s emotions and energy are flaring. 

But you can use the experience as a way to grow as a parent, as a way to understand your children better, as a way to create a life that better meets everyone’s needs and sets a different course for your family for the future.

If you do this regularly, not only will it dramatically improve your family life, but it can also lessen your tendency to beat yourself up when you fall short of your ideals, because you’ll know you’re addressing your ‘failings’ constructively.

And speaking of beating yourself up, JUST DON’T DO IT!

(For some support here, read my article The Secret Most Moms Don’t Talk About.)

When you beat yourself up, you don’t have space to learn a different way, because you’re caught up in self-blame, judgment, feeling guilty and self-hatred.

If you have the intention of becoming a better parent and are taking concrete actions to make it happen, you can’t help but keep growing as a parent!

Beating yourself up will only interfere with your progress.

One thing I want to share with you is my famous POTTY TRAINING analogy for growth and learning.

There are 3 steps to learning to use the toilet:

1. Noticing that you’ve peed
2. Noticing that you're peeing
3. Noticing that you need to pee and going to the bathroom to do so

Similarly, there are 3 steps to changing a behavior:

1. Noticing that you’ve done something you didn’t want to do (this could be right after the incident or much later)
2. Noticing that you’re engaged in a behavior you want to change, as it's happening.
3. ​Noticing when a new behavior is needed and being able to do it

The reason I’m sharing this is that we usually think we’re “failing‟ when we’re in steps 1 or 2. But we’re NOT. Steps 1 and 2 are an integral part of the learning process. 

So the next time you catch yourself reacting to your children in a way you don’t like, acknowledge yourself for already being in step 2!

Now let’s get back to the initial question of ‘how do I change my reaction midway when I’m triggered?’

Here are several suggestions of things you can do:

1. Take a few deep breaths, and focus on getting grounded in your body, on moving your energy from the craziness in your head to your feeling body.
   
2. Look into your daughter's eyes, take a moment to really SEE her, to connect with her.
   
3. Remind yourself that many times you don't need to answer or respond to the situation right away. It’s totally fine to say ‘I don’t want to answer right now because I’m triggered but we’ll talk about it in a bit.’ Or ‘we’ll address what just happened here later, once we’ve all had a chance to calm down.’
   
4. Do something completely crazy and off the wall to change the energy.
   

Having a planned strategy for when you get triggered can be extremely helpful. You can even discuss it with your children ahead of time.

Talk about how sometimes when we’re upset we end up saying and doing things that we regret later, things that don’t help the situation, and that it’s good to have a plan to prevent that from happening. Talk about what your own strategy is, and maybe they’ll also want to come up with one of their own.

For example your strategy could be to say 'I need a time-out otherwise I'm going to say or do something I'll regret.' And to then step away from the situation, maybe go to the bathroom, to another room, step outside for 5 minutes, or go make tea (or definitely coffee in my case!) 

I know this is not always possible to take a time-out with little ones, but see if you can come up with a strategy that would work for you and your family. It could be putting on music and dancing. Something to disengage from the situation and give space to what you're feeling.

An example from my life:

I experienced a pretty dramatic version of this, when I used to struggle with intense PMS feelings for about one full day a month, which were really activated by my little ones. It felt like I was possessed, as my reactions were so extreme. So I talked with my daughters about it, when it was NOT happening. I told them what happens to me, that I don’t mean anything I say nor the ways I react on those days, and that they really can’t believe a word that comes out of my mouth on those days. I also told them that I wanted to keep a distance from them on those days to protect them from me. As soon as my oldest got old enough to stay home alone with them, I would leave the house when those feelings would come on, knowing that everyone was better off if I spent 2 hours in the coffee shop instead of being home.

By talking with our children about our experiences of being triggered, and finding proactive solutions to handle the situations when it happens, we get to teach our children an incredibly valuable life skill which will serve them in all their relationships and for the rest of their lives. 

For a thorough discussion of Clean Parenting™, the parenting approach I teach, request my FREE report, The Almost Magical Formula For Surprising Ease and Harmony in Your Family While Fully Honoring Your  Children’s Spirits. It describes the four principles which when used together, truly lead to astounding ease and harmony in families.

Did you get value from this article? Would you like to give back? If so I would be incredibly grateful if you could share this article with your friends. I would LOVE help spreading the word about my work to people who could be positively impacted by it! 

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• Does your child feel that you're on his team?

Did your parents ever tell you "I'm doing this for your own good"?

(I teach those 4 principles in depth in my Clean Parenting program and you can request my report which describes them here.) 

To maintain your connection with your child and nurture his sense of self, you need to make sure that in every interaction, he FEELS that you are on his team. (Or at least in as many interactions as possible, as I've yet to meet a parent who can do it 100% of the time.)

This is so important that I've come to claim that if there's only one thing you can remember and focus on in your parenting, which will most support you in being a peaceful and effective parent and raising whole children, it is BEING ON THE SAME TEAM.

So what does that look like?

The best way I know to clearly convey what I mean by being on the same team is to give you an experience of it.

Think about a boss, a relative, a teacher, an organization leader or any other person who has been in a position of authority over you, whom you felt was really on your team. This person respected you, cared about your experience, taught you what you needed to learn and gave you instructions in a respectful manner. If you messed up, he/she strove to understand what happened, and presented you with support or any additional information you needed.

How did you feel in his/her presence? How did you respond to his/her feedback? How did you respond to his/her requests? How did you react when he/she spoke?

Really take a minute to feel this…

I mean it.

Close your eyes.

Picture that person, and take the time to connect with the feeling of being with them.

How did it feel? Please post your answer in the comments below!

This is the place we want to tap into in our parenting.

Truly being on the same team is the foundation of a caring and respectful family life—to having children who want to please you, learn from you and listen to you. 

Here's an example of how Joanne decided to approach a situation with her son Rowen, from a place of being on the same team:

"When Rowen was starting swim lessons this summer, it brought up many emotions from our failed attempt last summer. Last summer, the instructor put his head under water the first day. Rowen got water up his nose and it traumatized him. I was not able to get him back in that year. 

So, when lessons came this year, he was excited until it came time to go the first day. He suddenly froze and refused to go. Instead of insisting that he go and participate. I asked him if he was afraid because of last year. He said "yes" and we discussed it for a minute while he hugged me and cried. I told him that since we paid for it, we will at least go and watch so that he can see what they do. I promised that I would not make him go in the pool. He left with me but added, "I will NOT go in the pool" just to make sure I understood. I kind of knew he would want to after he saw the kids having fun. 

After we got there we settle down along the fence by the pool. Rowen started to cry. I said, "I know why you are crying. Because you really want to go in and have fun, but you are scared that your instructor will put your head under." He said "yes" and gave me a huge hug while crying. I promised him that if he went in, I would tell his instructor that under no circumstances was he to pressure him to put his head under. 

The lead instructor came over and I told her what was going on and she also agreed to relay the info to Rowen's instructor. She was really nice and Rowen liked her. After feeling confident that we were both on his team, he went in willingly. He was smiling from ear to ear as soon as he got in and didn't stop smiling the whole time. He had a ball all summer but he never did get his head under. We are still working on that. ;) "

Do you realize your child unfortunately may not feel you're on his team?

Here are a few tips that can help you make the switch:

• Overall it's a matter of re-programming your brain to continually ask: "How can we both get what most matters to us?" "How can we both get our needs met?" Continually be on the lookout for win-win's.
• Work WITH your child instead of AGAINST him. Put yourself in his shoes, see the situation from his perspective, feel what it must be like for him. Make sure that he feels that what matters to him matters to you as well.
• NEVER make him feel bad for something he feels or wants! Be accepting of feelings, impulses and desires, and only set limits on behaviors.
• Enlist him in coming up with solutions that you're both happy or at least comfortable with.
• When your child is 'misbehaving,' ask him why he's doing what he's doing, not from a place of judgment but from a place of truly wanting to understand him.
• Brainstorm with him ways that he could constructively and appropriately respond and express his emotions if the situation recurs.
• Tell him that you've decided to change your parenting approach with him because you really want to honor what he feels, and that you will now focus on looking for win/win solutions.

And here are 2 practical tips I came up with when I was working with a mom on getting her on the same team with her 5 year old son. They both worked like magic:

• When her very active child was being rambunctious and overwhelming her, instead of trying to stop him, I suggested that she get crazy with him for a minute. That she engage with him in his energy and then slow down together. This way he felt like she was on his team and was then open to stopping and calming down when she requested it. She was also there with him to help him calm down.
• When her son asked her if he could do something at bedtime, instead of just saying 'no,' because it was too late, she said 'let's do it first thing in the morning.' She even wrote it down on a piece of paper to make sure they wouldn't forget. Her son felt heard and that he mattered, and happily accepted postponing the activity.

So as you can see, the key is to first develop the mindset of working together and honoring everyone, and then being creative in the solutions we come up with.

Now, take a moment to imagine what it would have felt like if your parents had interacted with you from a place of being on the same team.

How different would your childhood have been? 

How different would your life be now?

​How differently would you feel about yourself?

Do you want this for your children? I'm so incredibly grateful I was able to provide it for mine! It sure shows in how differently they feel about themselves than I do about myself.

I encourage you to do whatever it takes so you can shift your parenting to fully being on the same team as your children.

And if you can't get there on your own, please get support from a parenting coach who can help you. (You can email me at [email protected] for help in choosing the best program for you.)

Lots of love,

To read about all 4 core principles of Clean Parenting™, request my FREE report:

The Almost Magical Formula for surprising EASE and HARMONY in your family while fully honoring your children’s spirits.  

WANNA GIVE BACK? Did you get value from this article? If so I would be incredibly grateful if you could share this article with your friends on Facebook (below) or Pinterest. I would LOVE help spreading the word about my work to people who could be positively impacted by it! 
​

SUGGESTIONS: If you liked this article, you may also enjoy:

• The Magic of Win-Win's
• The Key to Well-Behaved Children Who Listen to You, While Fully Respecting Them  
• Why It's Critical That You Trust Your Children
• How Do I Stop Myself Midway When I'm Triggered?
• The Power of Empathy
• The #1 Question to Ask When Your Child 'Misbehaves'

​​

​When Gaby was born, I plunged into a deep depression. It didn’t match the symptoms of postpartum depression, so I didn’t seek help for it. Partially because I didn’t really trust the ‘experts,’ having previously experienced a year of therapy which didn’t do anything for me, and partially because I felt like I should be able to pull myself out of it on my own.

I did manage to finally pull myself out of it, after 16 months.

For years I couldn’t figure out what that depression had been about. But I realized over time that what it was about was that ‘I’ wanted to feel the way my daughters did! There I had 3 live examples of beings living as though they mattered, with an intact sense of self, with a knowing that their needs would be met, feeling wholeheartedly loved.

And there was a deeply damaged little Eliane in me screaming “What about me?!?”

How was it that they got to live the way they did when I lived with such a deeply ingrained sense of something being intrinsically wrong with me, feeling that I was disgusting even? When I wasn't able to feel love, I walked around with my needs SO unmet, when I was SO longing for all they matter-of-factly had?

And how could I, from my place of emptiness, now fully meet 3 humans needs, all by myself?

At that moment, when Gaby was born, though I didn't know it at the time, started my own ongoing journey of healing.”

This story really struck a chord in Dawn, a mom of 2 living in Germany. The day after our call she posted the following in our program’s wonderful Facebook group:

“So...the call was fun! A totally new experience for me...very interesting... One thing that came up for me was triggered by something Eliane said...the whole 'what about me?' thing...Honestly, I feel such utter RESENTMENT sometimes towards Elijah...this is going to sound very childish but it needs to be said...how come he gets to have all his needs met when no one was there to meet mine? Why does he deserve to feel worthy and welcome from day 1 whilst I'm sitting here doing 'inner work' every single day just to make right 25 years of messed-upness? Why should he have someone to validate his feelings and for his rage and sadness to pass freely through him whilst being supported every step of the way by someone that loves him? Where are all the people to meet my needs? Who's making me feel worthy and welcome? Who's validating my ugly feelings and letting me know it's okay and that I am safe within those feelings? What about me??? I hate to say it, but... (it feels like) IT'S NOT FAIR!!! I guess I want what he has...I know self-love is crucial, that maybe I can almost mother myself back to feeling centered and worthy...but sometimes I'd really like for someone else to love me unconditionally too...to do the loving for me...to bask in love without having to work for it... Anyway, again feeling very grateful that I found this program and for all the wonderful people I'm sharing this journey with. Thank you. :-) “

Your post transcribed my own feelings and frustrations as accurately and clearly as if you’d pulled them directly from my mind (and the mind of every other young parent I know). During a recent conversation I had when feeling exceptionally weary, I described the experience of parenthood as "virtually everything relaxing, rejuvenating and pleasurable about your life becoming irretrievably scattered as your entire existence transitions into one entirely focused upon the preservation of a creature with inexhaustible demands, and only the most minimal, fleeting capacity for gratitude."

At the very least, we can take solace in the realization that so many of us share this experience—the burden of providing perpetual, continuous care while forgoing your own needs and desires. You give until you feel like you’re empty, and then keep giving. You have my gratitude for being courageous enough to share these personal (and somewhat painful) thoughts, and providing an avenue for people like me to gather strength and encouragement. 

Here is the one caveat/correction I’d contribute to the conversation: the need for validation—to be cared for, to be supported and encouraged and loved and appreciated by another human—is NOT childish. It is one of the most fundamental and basic human instincts; it is something we innately desire in each and every one of our relationships, and it is nothing to ashamed of. It’s true, in some sense, that the specific manifestation of our needs may be shaped by old wounds and unresolved childhood issues, but to “need”—to require help and care and encouragement—is universal to every individual of every age. 

This need is a basic one, but it is not childish. Sometimes, our self-perception becomes so warped (whether through notions of ability and achievement or through strictures of duty and obligation), we imagine those basic needs no longer apply to us. We confuse basic human desires with immaturity, as if somehow we’ve transcended the fundamental characteristics that make us human! 

Please believe me when I say that I empathize with every ounce of your frustration and resentment, your doubts and insecurities. But please don’t cling to that undeserved sense of shame. As parents, we have to wade through endless demands and emotional deprivation, but that doesn’t mean dismissing our sense of self, ignoring our own needs and desires. It just means that fulfilling those needs will be tougher—sometimes tougher than we’re prepared for. Thank you, again, for your honesty and authenticity.’ Johnny Snyder

So once I got over being jealous of Haley for being married to such an amazing man (as most women were in the group!) here’s what I responded:

“Okay, I'm finally ready to respond to this. One thing that I want to say, to all of you, is that what's being discussed here I also see as a wonderful opportunity for our healing. 

I've been doing inner work and coaching for 16 years now, and one of my big frustrations has been watching people settle for ways of living, relationships and situations that made them unhappy. And even when I would encourage them to do inner work to clear the way to them having what would deeply fulfill them, when I would tell them that they didn't need to suffer in this way, they still wouldn't find the motivation or commitment to do what it took to heal themselves. UNTIL IT STARTED AFFECTING THEIR CHILDREN! 

The beauty in this whole situation is that our children trigger our most wounded parts. Because of it we react inappropriately and hurt them to some degree. And THEN we often find the motivation to work on ourselves. What we weren't willing to do just for ourselves we're now willing to do for our children. And in the process of clearing what gets in our way of being the parent we want to be, of having a deeply happy and peaceful family, we heal ourselves. In this way, if we're open to it, our children are the catalysts to healing our own wounded child, so that we may also live from a place of inner freedom, peace and joy, a place of wholeness."

Our jobs are incredibly tough because we’ve committed ourselves to breaking the generational patterns of pain and dysfunction. It’s SO hard yet so needed. And if you’re reading this chances are that you have what it takes to do it and make a massive difference in the world! 

Spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson said “Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world, for the world is us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one.”

This is the critical work we’re doing. And what Parenting For Wholeness is dedicated to.

And now there’s another thing I want to address from Johnny’s post: 

Our needs DON’T have to go so unmet! 

There are resources for you. Parenting doesn’t have to be so hard. 

There are 3 things that are needed here, in my opinion.

1.     To build the strong parenting foundational skills of getting on the same team with our children and stepping firmly and cleanly into the trusted leader role which they need to thrive and we need to have ease and order in our homes and lives, so that our needs don’t feel so unmet.

2.     To do the inner work needed, which is highlighted in your reactions to your children or the places where you’re not able to put in practice the parenting skills and approaches you know.

3.     To create for yourself the support you need for your parenting life to be manageable and smooth, which we go into in my programs, as well as identifying our stuff and beliefs which get in our way of being able to create that support in our lives.

My two complementary programs are designed to provide you with the majority of the support you need to have ease in your parenting, create the support you need for yourself and your family and efficiently and effectively start your healing journey directly as it relates to your children and your parenting.

If you want ease and harmony in your family, and want all the members of your family to live from a place of wholeness, check out my Parenting For Wholeness CLEAN PARENTING Program by clicking here. If you’re ready to dedicate 7 weeks to build your clean and effective parenting foundation and are willing to take an honest look at yourself, this program very well might be for you. 

Going through this program will not only significantly impact the quality of your family life and relationship with your children, but it will also qualify you to participate in my DEEP HEALING Program, which is all about dealing with our reactions with our children, healing ourselves, and meeting our own needs.

Feel free to email me at [email protected] if you have any question, wonder if the program is the right fit for you, or to request a scholarship application if you have no way of coming up with the full tuition for it.

SUGGESTIONS: If you liked this article, you may also enjoy:

• 
  
• The Secret Most Moms Don't Talk About
  
• The Biggest Mistake The Most Caring Moms Make
• The Key to Well-Behaved Children Who Listen to You, While Fully Respecting Them
  
• How do I stop myself midway when I'm triggered?
  
• Make a huge difference in the happiness of your children with this incredibly simple but powerful tip!

When I'm out, I often see struggles happen between parents and children which are simply caused by the parent having an unrealistic expectation.

This makes me so sad for both of them!!!
​

What I'm talking about here are struggles where if the expectations, the environment or the circumstances were changed, the conflict or difficulty for the parent would completely disappear.

It makes me incredibly sad to witness those struggles, tears and fights which would never even show up in a different family simply because the parent's expectations are in alignment with what’s realistic for a child that age, of that temperament or in that situation.

One thing that’s guided my parenting and has been so helpful to me has been to look at my children from an evolutionary perspective. 

What has been normal for most of humanity, but has completely changed in the last centuries (or even decade!) and now leads us to having completely unrealistic expectations of our children.

Here are some examples:
​

• For most of humanity, babies have been carried until they could walk and slept with their moms, for safety. Expecting them to be happy and thrive if they sit in a cold hard seat during the day and sleep away from human contact is not realistic.
• For most of humanity, babies have nursed on demand, and for several years. Expecting them to feed on a schedule or easily wean before they’re ready is not realistic.
• For most of humanity, children have been around lots of people of all ages, living in tribes. Expecting children to be happy and thrive at home alone with mom is not realistic.
• For most of humanity, children have learned from observing what others were doing and then doing it themselves. Expecting children to happily and cooperatively sit in classrooms and be interested in what’s decided for them that they should learn is not realistic.
• For most of humanity children only had a handful of objects/toys to play with. Expecting them to be able to manage and clean up hundreds of them, including many of them with loads of little pieces like Lego's and Barbie's is unrealistic.
• For most of humanity, food was REAL food. Expecting children to be able to regulate their diet when presented with addictive substances such as sugar and processed foods (which happen to be advertised everywhere by experts who are trained in convincing your children that eating it will be the best experience of their life!) is unrealistic.
• For most of humanity, there were no such things as addictive screens. Expecting children to be able to healthily regulate their use of screens is not realistic.

And here are more situations where I often see parents struggle because they don't have a realistic expectation for their child:

• Toddlers are just babies on wheels. Their development is all about learning about their world through touch, and developing their gross motor functions. Expecting a 1 year old to not stand on chairs for example, or not touch objects in his environment is not realistic.
• Children have a huge need to be active (some more than others.) Not taking this into account, including their specific temperament, can lead to many unrealistic expectations.
• Children have a huge need for social interactions (again some more than others.) Not taking this into account, including their specific temperament, and making sure children's social needs are met, can lead to many unrealistic expectations of children being well-behaved at home for extended periods of time. (Though some toddlers are also very happy being home with mom, and as long as mom enjoys it too and everyone's happy, there's no need to force socialization.)
• Children need the freedom and respect to make their own decisions, unless they impact the rest of the family. Expecting them to let you make decisions for them or be open to your input if you don’t primarily give them control over their own life can lead to loads of problems and conflicts. (Click here for an article on this subject.)`
• Children need support in processing strong emotions. Expecting them to behave appropriately in the midst of strong emotions, without the underlying cause of the behavior being addressed and before they reach a certain level of emotional maturity (which, to be honest, in our society, most adults don't reach themselves, just some sad form of emotional suppression) is unrealistic.
• Children have their own agenda, are their own person. Another expectation that parents (people!) often have that gets them in trouble is that their children have or should have the same agenda as they have. Which of course is not true because we all have different priorities, interests, desires.

Developing realistic expectations of our children can go a LONG way in preventing struggles in our families!

And similarly as with our children, a lot of the pain and stress that we experience as parents comes from the fact that we don’t have realistic expectations of OURSELVES.

And because we’re caught up in what we think we should be doing, or how we think we should be, we don’t proactively address the real problem. 

Where in your parenting do you have unrealistic expectations of yourself? 

If you have a hard time seeing it, imagine that the situations with which you struggle are happening to a dear friend of yours, who’s a great parent. 
​
Seriously, picture someone you know and value. From that lens, can you spot some unrealistic expectations?

WANNA GIVE BACK? Did you get value from this article? If so I would be incredibly grateful if you could share this article with your friends on Facebook (below) or Pinterest. I would LOVE help spreading the word about my work to people who could be positively impacted by it! 
​

SUGGESTIONS: If you liked this article, you may also enjoy:

• The Key to Well-Behaved Children Who Listen to You, While Fully Respecting Them
• The #1 Question to Ask When Your Child 'Misbehaves'
• How Do I Stop Myself Midway When I'm Triggered?
• Does Your Child FEEL That You're On His Team?
• Do You Believe Your Children Want to Do the Right Thing?
• Would You Like This for Your Children? One Family's Results of Natural Parenting

What if one simple shift could make a huge difference in your family life? AND make your life a whole lot easier?
​

Read or listen to the audio version.

I realized recently that there's an area where parents are working much harder than they need to. Where putting in less effort would greatly benefit their family! 

Isn't that a nice thought?!?

This realization came last Sunday during a presentation I was giving on "The Essential Principles I've Adopted From NVC (Nonviolent Communication.)" 

One of the key NVC teachings* I've integrated in my life and teach parents is empathy.

(I'll get to the simple tip later, once I've laid the foundation for it.)

Learning to truly empathize with your children is one of the most powerful parenting tools you can develop, one of the 4 parenting pillars I consider essential to have ease and harmony in your family while raising whole and happy children. (Click here for a report that covers all 4 pillars of Clean Parenting™.)

What IS empathy? Let's start with what it's not.

Empathy is not:

• reassurance: "Don't worry, everything's going to be fine."
• sharing your own story: "I know what you mean, it happened to me too when..." (followed by a few minutes of you talking about yourself.)
• one upping: "That's nothing! When I was a child I had to..."
• asking questions: "Wow, why do you think he did that?"
• minimizing: "That's not that big of a deal, you shouldn't make a big fuss about it."
• sympathy: "Poor you, this is horrible!"

I'm not saying that there's something wrong (for some of them anyway!) with the above responses, just that it isn't empathy.

Take a moment to ask yourself how you feel when someone interacts with you in any of those ways. Think of a time when you were upset and sit with each of the responses.

Now let's move on to what it is.

Empathy is: 

• being present, therefore connected to yourself
• fully listening to the other, connecting with his experience
• offering the space and your presence for him to experience and express what is present in him
• being in a place of full acceptance of his feelings (not necessarily of his actions!), in a place of compassion
• having no agenda except to be present to her and make sure that she feels heard and understood
• trusting in her innate wisdom to find her way through her experience
• honoring her experience, her inner life

Now take a moment to connect with how it would FEEL to you if someone was with you in this way, when you're upset. I'd love to hear your answers in the comments below!

Empathy is mostly a way of being, not something you do. It's a skill that can be cultivated and which will bring you benefits you may not even be aware of, not only in all your relationships but in your relationship with yourself and in the quality of your inner life.

I experience it as a social meditation.

When you empathize with your children you give them full permission to be who they are and to have the experience they're having. You support them in connecting with their experience and offer the space for them to process it organically. You support them in finding their own innate wisdom. You offer them a natural tool so that they don't carry their unprocessed experiences into the future. 

Empathy diffuses conflict and prevents resistance and rebellion. It supports children in becoming self connected, authentic, feeling worthy and being able to find their own solutions and process their experiences on their own.

One note here is that it's absolutely okay if your children cry. In fact it often can happen if they feel true empathy from you. Tears are a powerful way in which experiences get processed. The deeper your children go into the emotion, the more processing is happening. All you have to do is stay with them, perhaps holding them, until the emotion through the tears has passed.
​

If we engage with words, it's only for the purpose of allowing them to more deeply connect with their experience, so that they can organically move through it, through the innate wisdom of their being.

There is a lot that can be said on communicating from a place of empathy, but for now I'll just offer one guideline.

If you want to speak from a place of empathy, make your goal to have your words match their experience. You can use any words that will allow them to more fully connect with what they're experiencing. If you get an emphatic "YES!" in response to something you say, you'll know that it's what you're doing.

So are you still wondering what I was referring to in the title of this article?

Here it is!

I noticed throughout my call on Sunday that some of the moms were intently trying to figure out how to communicate with their child, how to help them, what to do. I could feel their tension and the intellectual effort of trying to figure it out. 

And it was obvious what they needed to hear: 

You don't need to do or say ANYTHING!!! All you need to do is BE with your child. Relax, love, don't try to fix anything, just be.

Can you feel that? Can you find that place? 

Close your eyes and find it. Feel it. Let it permeate you so that you can remember it and draw upon it when needed.

It's SO easy! And feels good. It's connecting. Relaxing. Natural. And a beautiful gift to give others.

You just need to unlearn your habit of needing to do something, let go of the belief that you help by doing.

Last night, in the midst of writing this article, I had to stop for a weekly coaching call with one of the delightful moms in my group. 

At some point during our call her 6 year old daughter walked in, upset. Caroline picked her up lovingly and placed her in her lap. Her daughter was crying and all Caroline provided was complete allowance of her experience, love and compassion. At times she would still talk with me while snuggling her daughter. After just a few minutes, she directed her to go re-join her dad, which her daughter did easily.

Caroline didn't overtly DO or say anything to make her daughter feel better. But from my vantage point I could feel the love, acceptance, compassion, peace and the relaxed energy in Caroline. I wish I had a video of it to share with you. 

It was sheer beauty and the exact attitude I know to be profoundly impactful on our children.

*I am NOT a certified NVC teacher, though I have studied it extensively. I want to make it clear that what I teach is my interpretation and integration of NVC, NOT the pure NVC principles.

To read about all four of the core principles of Clean Parenting™, request my FREE report: The Almost Magical Formula for surprising EASE and HARMONY in your family while fully honoring your children’s spirits.  When used together, those four principles truly lead to astounding ease and harmony in families (empathy is the fourth one.)

WANNA GIVE BACK? Did you get value from this article? If so I would be incredibly grateful if you could share this article with your friends on Facebook (below) or Pinterest. I would LOVE help spreading the word about my work to people who could be positively impacted by it! 

SUGGESTIONS: If you liked this article, you'll likely also enjoy:


• The #1 Question to Ask When Your Child 'Misbehaves'
• Does Your Child FEEL That You're on His Team?
• A Few Thoughts on Holding, by Matt Licata
• What Loving and Effective Parenting Looks Like - An Example from the Huxtable's (video)
• Could Your Struggle Just Be Caused by an Unrealistic Expectation?
• Parenting Can Be Easy?!?

Read or listen to the audio

I've noticed a common and very sad thread in several conversations I've had recently. 

These conversations were with mothers who are exceptionally dedicated to their children. 

Who are committed to honoring their children's spirits. 

Whose main concern is to not in any way interfere with their children's wholeness. 

Who value the quality of their connection and their every interaction with their child above anything else. 

Who succeed in the vast majority of the time in parenting in alignment with their extremely high values. 

Who based on what I believe to be best for children are in the top 1% of best moms I've ever met.

I hear them say things like: 

• 'I want to stop feeling irritated when he won't fall asleep'
• 'I don't want to get annoyed when he doesn't do what I ask'
• 'I want to stop feeling overwhelmed when she's cranky.'
• 'I want to stop feeling snappy when she smears food all over.'

Can you spot what's wrong with this picture?

They're treating themselves in a way they'd never DREAM of treating their child!

• They're disallowing their feelings.
• They're judging and blaming themselves for what they FEEL.
• They're not allowing themselves to have needs, desires and preferences.
• They're denying aspects of themselves.
• They're trying to turn themselves into somebody they're not.
• They're not allowing themselves to be human!!!

Do you recognize yourself in this? 

If you do, I want to tell you that what you need to do, on the contrary, is pay MORE attention to your feelings. What are they telling you? What are the unmet needs that need to be addressed so that you can sustainably be the loving mom you aspire to be for you child?

In order for you to have harmony in your family, everyone's needs have to be met, INCLUDING YOURS!

If you don't take care of your needs, you'll end up being resentful, which will impact the quality of your relationship with your child. And you'll have a build up of unaddressed emotions which WILL blow up in often inappropriate and damaging ways. 

You are NOT doing your child a favor by meeting his needs at the expense of yours. You're teaching him that his needs matter and yours don't. And that in order for one person's needs to be met, another's need to be ignored. 

In order for your child to learn to successfully live socially, he needs to learn to look for win/win situations. And those can be found, the vast majority of the time, if we focus on identifying and meeting the underlying needs.  

the consciousness at its core and the perspective it offers are in my opinion one of the most important one available to us in radically reducing emotional suffering AND improving all relationships.

I'll write more about the concept of needs vs wants, feelings and strategies in a future post, as I believe internalizing it is KEY in achieving harmony in your family.

Now back to my most caring, conscious moms. 

There's another sad trend I've noticed and found myself talking a lot about recently. 

And it has to do with when they 'mess up' as a parent.

I've been amazed and saddened at HOW MUCH they beat themselves up for what they do or don't do which is not in alignment with their parenting values.

And at how FEARFUL they are that they are damaging their child!

I had an absolutely incredible mom, someone I greatly admire, write the following to me this month:

“I’m filled with such guilt, remorse, and fear that I've irreparably damaged my daughter, her true self and her innate worthiness and her future ability to have peace and joy.” 

"I have fear that because I didn't handle my stuff, she went from being whole and fully intact with all the strength, loveability, worthiness, fearlessness, etc. she had to now being permanently wounded. I’m afraid she’ll be like me, wounded and behaving in ways that she regrets through no fault of her own." 

Is any of THIS resonating with you?

If it is and you're like the majority of my readers, you have done a fantastic job meeting your children's needs, even though a lot of yours were NOT met as an infant and child.

It's very challenging to meet another's needs when we have an unresolved store of unmet ones. I REALLY want you to recognize how much you ARE doing that, how much more you are giving your children considering what you didn't get! 

Parenting in the loving, considerate and respectful way that you are is an incredible gift you are giving your children. And you are doing it in a society (and maybe even community and family!) which largely doesn't support and understand what you're doing, and may even be critical of it! 

You REALLY need to HONOR YOURSELF for what you're doing for your children.

And as you focus more on meeting your needs and healing the residues from your childhood, you'll find that you'll organically parent more in alignment with your values.

Another thing I've found myself sharing numerous times, which seems to really hit home with those moms, is that our children are a lot more resilient than we are. 

Because of the way they've been lovingly parented from birth, they don't have the same woundedness that we have!

As a result of it, they don't make the same conclusions out of our actions as we would have as children.

As my daughters got older, I got to have insight into this in my conversations with them.

What freedom!

So think of how this is playing out in your family. What is it that you're most afraid of, in terms of messing up your child, or when you fall short of your ideals?

Once you've identified that, look at your family life objectively, as if it was someone else's. And ask yourself if it's even possible for your child to experience your actions in the way you fear, to make the same conclusions about himself as you would have as a child. 

(I'd LOVE to hear your answers! Please post them below if you're willing to share.)

My advice to these incredibly caring moms I've been talking to, who had contacted me to figure out how to be better moms, has been the following:

"You already are an AMAZING mom to your child! What you really need to do more than anything is to become a BETTER MOM TO YOURSELF."

"And for me to remind you of what an AMAZING job you're doing!!!" 

And I REALLY want you to hear it as well if you've recognized yourself in what I've described in this article.

​With much love,

​Want my support in getting to a place where yours and your children's needs are fully met?

Then join me in my next Clean Parenting™ group!

SUGGESTIONS: If you liked this article, you may also enjoy:

• The Secret Most Moms Don't Talk About
• How Do I Stop myself Midway When I'm Triggered?
• What About Me...?
• The Magic of Win-Win's in Your Family
• A Unique and Often Heartbreaking Path: Breaking Our Family’s Generational Pattern of Dysfunction
  
• Does Your Child FEEL That You're On His Team?

I was honored to be asked to submit a blog post on Love Parenting’s beautiful website. I love Sam’s message and am thrilled at all the support and information made available to parents through her work. We are completely aligned in our approach and philosophy to parenting, but my children are a lot older than hers (15, 18 and 21.) So I thought you might enjoy reading about the results of this parenting approach in one family, to get an idea of what you might have to look forward to if you also commit yourself to this approach.

It can be very challenging to parent in a way that’s different from the mainstream, as I’m guessing you’re doing if you’re reading this article. It’s also challenging, sometimes overwhelming, to spend a large part of each day focused on meeting little ones’ needs. I hope my experience can give you some inspiration to keep doing it, as well as some reassurance that it’s worth it beyond what you can even imagine! My 3 daughters and I are a living proof of it.

When my first daughter was born, I went on a quest to find a parenting approach that would insure that she would grow up feeling whole, loved, and knowing that she was intrinsically good. It just wasn’t not an option for me to have her experience even a smidgen of what I lived and still struggled to heal from: growing up feeling unloved and believing I was deeply flawed.

For the first 5 years of my parenting journey, all my attention and energy went into finding and integrating into my family an approach that felt 100% right.

I am blessed to be experiencing with my 3 daughters, ages 15, 18 and 21, a lot of the promises that Jean Liedloff made in her book The Continuum Concept. Blessed to have (mostly!) raised them in a way that is in harmony with their essential nature. Blessed to know that as a result of my parenting there are three young women in this world who are free from most of the pain that the majority of us walk around with.  I wrote about this last week with the intention to inspire parents who want it to commit themselves to applying The Continuum Concept in their lives.

If you also have a sense that TCC speaks the truth, yet struggle with fully trusting it and committing yourself to doing whatever it takes to implement it in your family, or just want support in it, here are a few things that have supported me in the early part of my parenting journey, which may also help you, as well as new ones which weren't available when my children were young.

Journal / Meditate / Focus on your spiritual path

It’s easy to get focused on and consumed by the details and struggles of our daily life. And then lose tracks of our ideals, of our beliefs, and of the bigger picture. What keeps you connected to those? And connected to your core self? Is there a routine that you could create in your life that would support you?

Create a local tribe

When my daughters we little, I had 2 groups of specifically Continuum Concept families with whom I met regularly (in addition to several other groups who were also supportive, though not with a CC focus.)

One was a monthly Continuum Concept discussion group, consisting of mothers (and of course loads of children!) with whom I’d connected through various groups: La Leche League, Mothering Magazine and homeschooling groups. Having shared the book with everyone I thought might be interested in it, I was able to pool a decent group of people who were happy to come to my house once a month. We’d all brainstorm about how to apply TCC to various situations we were experiencing in our families, as well as social ones which would often play out right in the midst of the meeting! This is in large part how I figured out how to apply TCC in my family.

I also got to enjoy a weekly Continuum day which my friend Janet created. Four families would meet every Friday. One of us would be responsible for planning that night’s dinner and purchasing the ingredients for it. We would meet in the morning, somehow scramble a lunch for all of us (there was originally 9 children and eventually 12!) and together we would prepare that night’s dinner which we would split into 4 portions to take back to our individual homes and have ready to serve that night. We originally planned on also cleaning the house we were at, but quickly decided that we’d much rather take advantage of the social opportunity to be all together rather than spending a few hours in separate rooms and ending up with a clean house. Those were wonderful days where the moms had their social needs met, were engaged in adult activities, and the children were completely happy being socially engaged with children of all ages.

How can you create a local support? If you have a desire for it, brainstorm various local and online sources from which you could draw like-minded parents: LLL, meetups, attachment parenting, natural living, homeschooling, natural food coops, etc. And hold on the saying “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” It may take time, effort and creativity to create your tribe, but I have found it to be well worth the effort.

Participate in online support

You are blessed nowadays with something I didn't have when I was first raising my children, which is access to anyone IN THE WORLD!

I was excited to discover recently that there are a few CC Facebook groups, a Continuum Concept list serv, as well as a few Continuum Concept Meetup groups. There are also undoubtedly a host of other groups you could join which even if not specifically CC would offer you support.

Though connecting with people online may not be as rewarding as meeting in person, it IS a great way to connect with like-minded people. Is there a way you can use your computer to create support for yourself? What would be supportive for you and fit your personality and preferences? And if there isn't a group that specifically resonates with you, could you create one?

(I’m planning on soon creating a Facebook page connected to my website, which will be dedicated to supporting you in parenting according to CC principles, and where you’ll be able to ask me questions. Make sure that you’re on any of my email lists if you want to be notified once it’s activated.)

Create phone / Skype  support

My absolute favorite new(ish) technology is Skype! I love the feeling of connection that I get when talking on Skype, being able to actually see the person I’m talking to. It’s not only been wonderful to connect with my oldest daughter who lives 1100 miles away, but has allowed me to create new friendships which are deeply supportive of my current path.

For example, my current deepest interest and resonance is in the nonduality approach to spirituality. After doing some individual and group sessions with a teacher, I was invited into her Facebook group. Through this group I have connected with a woman from California as well as a young man from Brazil. Both of those connections are supporting me in deepening my practice and embodiment of a work towards which I am currently deeply guided and is adding tremendous value to my life.

Can you find group calls in which you can participate which would offer the type support that would be most beneficial to you? Do you resonate with someone’s perspective and experience in some online group with whom you could buddy up and talk on a regular basis? Did you meet someone with whom you connected but doesn't live in your area, with whom you could still develop a mutually supportive relationship over Skype?

Again, I’m looking into creating this type of ongoing live support for parents who would like it, so stay tuned for info on this.

Meet with parents who have done it

A significant event in our parenting journey was when my husband and I got to spend time with a wonderful Continuum Concept family living in Vermont, who at that time had 4 teenage daughters. The sense of peace, ease and harmony that we experienced in that family was unlike anything we’d ever seen before and has stayed with me to this day. I vividly remember us walking out of that house 17 years ago, and saying to each other “This is who we want to be when our children grow up.” I wish I remembered the name of that family so that I could let them know what an impact they had on our family. 

It’s one thing to hear about the peace in the Yequana tribe, but to actually get to be with a Western family like yours who has lived in the Continuum way, to get to EXPERIENCE it, is worth endless numbers of books. It can ground in your bones what is possible.

Parents of older children can also offer a perspective that is inaccessible to us while we’re in the throes of daily ongoing situations with little ones.

Invest in professional support

If you have a sense that you’re off track and unable to easily make the internal shift to parenting from a Continuum perspective on your own, hiring a Continuum Concept coach (or another parenting expert that you deeply resonate with) might be one of the best investments you could ever make for your family. Someone who embodies the Continuum principles (whether or not they call themselves Continuum,) who’s parented from that perspective and is skilled in supporting parents in making the shift to that approach. The benefits of more deeply embodying the Continuum principles in the context of your family will benefit you, your spouse and your children for the rest of your lives, as well as generations to come. And hiring a professional very well might be the most direct path to make that happen. (See my Home page for info on scheduling a free session if you'd like to explore the possibility of working with me.)

I've met a few parents who had easy access to naturally parenting from a harmonious, connected and effective place. But for the vast majority of us, it takes a lot of effort and time to unlearn and undo all the programming that’s in us. To access the clarity of what’s true for us. To learn to live and parent from that place. I've found that creating both inner and outer support is a key in achieve that transformation.

Do you want support in applying a Continuum Concept based approach in your family, with a tribe of committed parents? Check out my Parenting For Wholeness CLEAN PARENTING™ Program, and lots of testimonials of the impact it's had on TCC families! 


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• The Continuum Concept - It Works!!!

I promised to write more on this topic this week, so here it is. :-)

If I had to pick only one thing to convey and be able to completely convince Continuum Concept parents of, it would be that IT DOES WORK! And I’d like to then somehow be able to inject you with the unshakable determination to find a way to implement its approach in your family. 

Did you really get this? I’ll say it again because I really want you to hear it:

It does work! 

And 

It's worth doing whatever it takes to implement it in your family!

You and your children will experience its rewards for the rest of your lives!

I truly believe that the key to the incredible success that I've experienced in my family, with each of my three daughters, stems from the fact that I absolutely refused to accept what was considered ‘normal.’

I steadfastly held on to the ideals of which Jean convinced me. I didn't stop my search for an approach and attitude that felt completely right in every cell of my body and could inform every aspect of my parenting until I found it. 

(If you haven't read The Continuum Concept, click here for a description of one of the two books which completely changed my life.) 

Because the approach I pursued was dramatically different from what my family members and others around me had previously been exposed to, I was called many names over the years: idealistic, unrealistic, weird, an extremist, a zealot. And though some of them could be, they were rarely meant in the positive sense.

I’m guessing you may have heard them as well…?

But I was blessed to somehow have an inner knowing which kept me on track, and to be supported by outside conditions which kept me focused in my quest. I will share next week what I did to create and cultivate those conditions, as well as other ideas I have to also support YOU in implementing The Continuum Concept in YOUR family.

MAJOR DISCLAIMER HERE!!!

I'm not saying that I was a perfect mother.

Far from it. 

In fact, one of the reasons I so value The Continuum Concept is the results it’s yielded with my daughters IN SPITE of how often I fell short of my ideals as a parent.

In spite of (and I’m taking a more than slightly uncomfortable stretch in the vulnerability department here)

 … how emotionally messed up I can be

… depressions I've experienced throughout the years

… divorce and subsequent failed relationships

… all the times and ways in which I was emotionally absent to my daughters

In fact it feels a little strange to find myself in a parenting expert role, considering some of the things I know I've done. Yet when I look at my daughters, I am amazed and moved to tears at what I allowed to happen through embodying this incredibly loving and effective way of parenting. 

As my mom has always said about my kids, especially to those who criticized my parenting approach “You can’t argue with success!”

SECOND DISCLAIMER:

My daughters are NOT perfect! I’m reluctant to give much detail here, as I want to respect them and honor their privacy. But there are definitely times when you could see evidence that they are not perfect. And there are traits in some of them with which I sometimes struggle and wish were different.

Though it’s not the topic of this blog post, I’ll say a little more about this subject before moving on.

I sometimes think those traits might come from the places where they didn't get all their needs met at an early age. But they could also just be how they are. There are two things I want to share about this which I’ll expand upon in future posts:

- I don’t feel like I have any right to judge how my daughters should and shouldn't be. An unexpected outcome of my intense personal and spiritual growth focus, as well as of the decades piling on, has been the realization of how little I can actually know. Whereas I used to be very cocky and sure of my opinions even just a few years ago. This may seem contradictory to my claim that TCC works, but I still feel they are both true. And…

- It’s completely useless to focus on the past, EXCEPT for dealing with the ways in which it’s still playing out in our lives now. I’ll be expanding A LOT MORE on this one in the future.

THRID DISCLAIMER:

There wasn’t ALWAYS complete harmony in my house, nor in my daughters’ relationships together.

So given all of that, what’s making me say that IT DOES WORK?

I could write a whole book chapter on what I've experienced (and continue to) and see in my daughters which I attribute to my application of The Continuum Concept, but I’ll only highlight a few significant ones here:

 How well behaved they were as young children

Though I absolutely REFUSED to use the word obedience up until a few weeks ago, I now recognize that it’s exactly what they were. I could easily take my three little ones anywhere, whether to a restaurant, a non-childproofed home or travel alone with them. They always knew to check with my husband or I to have guidance as to what was appropriate on not in new situations, from a much younger age than child development books might suggest. We were therefore free to focus on what was needed and what we were interested in instead of having to supervise our children. It made our life, though very busy, very easy!

The harmony in my house

Except for occasional and easily resolved conflicts, life in my house has always been extremely pleasant. I've had house guests comment on how peaceful my home was, which seemed contradictory because it was filled with three spirited, active, loud and sometimes rambunctious children. But what was absent was an adversarial attitude, and any hint of trying to control each other.

I have a friend who claims that I've ruined all other children for him, because he expects them all to be like mine.

Having met my parenting goals

When my first daughter was about two, my husband and I created a parenting missions statement. We dug deep and determined our core goals for our children. I pulled it out a few years ago and was both impressed by what we’d stated as it still rang completely true more than ten years later, and a little shocked and awed to see how COMPLETELY they were met!

(Incidentally, because of the power of this process in our family, I've designed a Creating Your Parenting Mission Statement Workshop which I’ll be offering soon. Make sure that you're on one of my email list if you want to receive information on it once it's scheduled.)

Part of why this is so significant to me is that those qualities are often elusive in myself and the members of my family of origin, yet I was able to cultivate them in my daughters, thanks to a completely different parenting approach.

Here’s what I see that my daughters have in spades, and which I’d love for all children (and eventually all adults) to have: an unshakable sense of self, self-confidence, inner motivation, self-sufficiency and the ability to find their own happiness in the world.

Being done parenting early on

I truly feel that I was done parenting, in the traditional sense, somewhere between the ages of 12 and 14. By that point they made all of their own decisions, and I would only offer my opinion and experience. Because I’d encouraged them to do for themselves what they could and allowed them to make their own decisions from a very early age, they were very mature and competent in navigating their lives. I believe they would have been able to live on their own by age 14 and even been able to be responsible and caring mothers. But I haven’t had to test that theory. :-)

Their success in school

Though I also attribute their success in school to their genes (traditional schooling tends to be easy in my family) and to their being unschooled for many years, my approach to their education was also informed by the Continuum Concept.

They each chose to go to public school at ages 9 and 10 and experienced no pressure from their father nor I to have high grades. Yet they all excelled of their own volition. They took complete charge of their education as I never expected them to do homework nor attend school.

And I can’t help but share a funny story here:

My daughter Gaby used to skip LOTS of days of school. One day, I received in the mail two letters from her school: one congratulated her on making the dean’s list for her academic excellence and the other stated that her high rate of 'truancy' might lead to academic failure.

(June 2014 update: Audrey, 18, just graduated high school as valedictorian and will be attending NYU, one of the most prestigious schools in the US, and Cassandra, 21, will be graduating from college this summer in 3 years instead of the usual 4, with honors.)

If you know in your bones that the Continuum Concept approach to parenting is the way to go, I urge you to do what it takes to align yourself with it, so that you can also experience in your family what I have in mine: ease, joy, harmony, connection, absence of worry and the knowing that your children are fully equipped to find their happiness in the world.

I will share with you next week what I did to support myself in implementing this approach in my family, as well as other ideas I have that could help you do it as well.

For many more Continuum Concept resources, click here. Though my programs don't specifically cater to Continuum Concept parents, the basis of everything I teach is grounded in the principles from the book.

And for practical Continuum Concept support, request my FREE report, 'The Almost Magical Formula For Surprising EASE and HARMONY In Your Family, While Fully Honoring Your Children's SPIRIT.' It describes the four essential elements (the first three being based on The Continuum Concept) which when used together create almost magical ease and harmony in families. 

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BELIEVING THAT CHILDREN WANT TO DO THE RIGHT THING

In The Continuum Concept, we’ve read and I’m assuming resonated with the idea that our children are innately social, that they want to do the right thing relative to others, and that in fact human kind would not have survived otherwise. Yet how do we translate this into our little family, in our Western culture?

(If you haven't read The Continuum Concept, click here for a description of one of the two books which changed my life.) 

First of all, I want to admit that IT’S HARD!

As non-Yequana parents, we’ve bathed from birth in the beliefs and been surrounded by behaviors that implicitly or explicitly state that our impulses are not good and that we need to be manipulated in doing the right thing. This belief unfortunately informs the majority of our reactions and interactions, even though we may intellectually believe what Jean stated in the book.

But even if we act ‘the appropriate way’ with our children, our underlying belief is still felt. Think back to a time when you were feeling resentful toward your spouse or your friend, but were trying to be nice and loving anyway. Can you feel how much that resentment was still subtly but very clearly present in the interaction? Can you see how your deeply ingrained belief that children don’t want to do what you want them to might still imbue every interaction that you have with them, even if you try to bypass it?

Until our belief in our children’s social nature is restored to what’s true, we don’t have access to interactions with them that tap into their beautiful innate nature, and lead to the ease and harmony in our families which we long for. And which Jean has promised us is possible. That erroneous belief NEEDS to be undone in order for us to be able to parent in alignment with our children’s natural social nature!

Once you truly know that your child’s nature is good, it will be obvious that any misbehavior comes from a place of something being ‘off.’

It could be because:

You are being too child-centered

OR

You are not grounded in yourself, not clear and not being the parent in charge.

Both of those cause a SHAKINESS in children which will cause them to ‘misbehave’ because something feels ‘off’ in their world. Aligning yourself in this area will give them the security they need to be able to relax and be free of that discomfort. Both of these concepts are deserving of their own discussions. I’ll address them in a future post.

Some of their physical needs are not met in the moment, such as they are tired or hungry.

In that case what needs to be addressed is their NEED, not their behavior. You can say something like “Wow, for you to be acting like this, something’s going on. I bet it’s because you’re hungry (or tired.) Let’s go get you some food (or a nap.)” You don’t want to condone the behavior, so may need to address that what was done wasn’t appropriate. But your MAIN focus is on the ROOT CAUSE of their behavior and TAKING ACTION to meet that need.

By doing this, you not only restore harmony in your family but

… you are showing them the link between their need not being met and their behavior, which increases their self-awareness.

and

… you are teaching them to take care of themselves as a way to prevent acting in non-harmonious ways.

They are acting out an emotional issue

In the case of the new friend I mentioned earlier, I believe the cause of her son wanting to hurt his younger brother is that he has UNRESOLVED FEELINGS around the birth and/or invasion of his space by his brother.

If you are clear that you child is innately good and social, your approach to him pushing his brother would

… not be to ask “WHY did you DO this???”, with an upset and judgmental tone of voice

… but instead to ask “Why did you do this?” from a loving, concerned and genuinely curious place. What he would hear, that would be unsaid but clearly conveyed in your question is ‘I love you, I know that you are kind and caring and that this isn’t a normal behavior, I care about you and want to make sure that your needs are met, I’m here for you.’

It’s of crucial importance for your children to be able to express what they are experiencing, without EVER feeling that something’s wrong with them or their feelings.

So if what is indeed motivating my friend’s son’s behavior is distress over his brother coming into his life, my approach would be to encourage him to express all of his feelings about it. To voice them and cry if that’s what’s coming up, until he’s COMPLETELY done expressing it all. My only job as a loving parent would be to reflect to him what he’d say to me, or take guesses at what he might be feeling based on my knowledge of him.

I wouldn’t say ANYTHING other than reflecting and asking him questions about what he’s feeling. No EXPLANATION, no RATIONALIZING, no DENYING of what he’s saying based on another contradictory thing he’s said before, no JUSTIFICATION of why you had another child or why that child is doing what he is, no POINTING OUT the benefits to him of having a sibling and his prior RELENTLESS REQUESTS for him to have one before he was born. I think you may be getting my point…?

The absolute BEST THING that we can do as parents (and indeed as friends, partners, etc) is to hold the space for our children to express and feel all that’s present in them, to encourage them to keep feeling it all, and to generally SHUT UP.

Humans are intrinsically good and whenever we act out it comes from a place of hurt. I’m very clear that the meanest people in the world are also the most wounded ones. Healing those emotional wounds is a lot simpler than what most of us think, thought it does HAVE to be done for our behaviors to arise again from our naturally loving nature. What’s needed is for the unresolved emotion to be accessed and experienced fully. It’s then released so that we again have access to living in harmony with our true nature. This is of course true for ourselves as well as for our children.

In the case of my friend’s son, it’s very possible that once he’s guided to and allowed to fully express his emotions around the birth of his brother, that his behavior toward him would INSTANTANEOUSLY change. I'd be really curious to hear of her experience if she puts this into practice...

P.S.: Click here for a post which includes a video of Clair Huxtable (from The Cosby Show) embodying what's described here.

Does my perspective speak to you? Check out my Parenting For Wholeness CLEAN PARENTING program, designed to get you to a place of ease and harmony with your children in just a few weeks, while fully honoring their spirits. Click here for information and testimonials. 

Did you get value from this article? Would you like to give back? If so I would be incredibly grateful if you could share this article on your Facebook wall and in your mama groups with a comment about one thing you found valuable in it. I would LOVE help spreading the word about my work to people who could be positively impacted by it! 

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And for Continuum Concept support, click here for lots of resources.