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Updates on The Family Alchemists

Hi Friends, When I created The Family Alchemists in 2018, I had a really big vision and mission of connecting people to the resources they need to grow. I have so many amazing professionals in the Conscious Parenting space as friends and was determined to help them...

How Recovery Principles Pave the Way to Conscious Parenting

Applying the 12 steps to my parenting helped me practice boundaries, communicate with integrity and ultimately BE loving and tolerant.

Conscious Communication Skills

In times of great social change, we look for the things we can control. We may not be able to predict the future for ourselves or our teens, but we can control how we communicate. The way we communicate reveals what we value and how we value it. I longed to connect...

How to Save a Marriage

So, you’re an empath married to a guy that treats you like a queen – most of the time. But those times he’s angry? You question if you’re more like your mother than you thought. You worry that his behavior is going to hurt your kids and that you’re being irresponsible...

WHAT DOES SPIRITUALITY MEAN TO YOU?

When I have a chance to actually discuss the topic with clients, it is very simple to explain my view of spirituality, understand my clients’ perspective, and come to a common ground semantically (and often philosophically). I notice I regularly attract people who...

Helping Your Kids During Coronavirus Social Distancing

Dear Brave Ones: Of course, we’re scared. That means it’s the time to be gentle and compassionate with ourselves and others. Can you imagine how scared our kids are? Their routines have been disrupted and they miss their teachers and friends. They have less control...

Out of the race

From the moment we are born, we are part of a race we never wanted to be in, we are measured by milestones and compared endlessly with any peers we share our life with. We are numbers in charts and checkmarks in lists of accomplishments, in other words, we are what we...

Mindful Parenting Through the Everyday Stresses

In the fast paced world of parenting where decisions are made in between spilled cereal, constant questioning and smartphone apps, it is no wonder the word mindfulness is becoming as necessary in a parent’s vocabulary as the word nap-time. And yet, for many,...

What our children ask of us

Our children ask so little really. Listen to my discoveries and ideas. Look through my eyes to understand my world. Feel my love, joy, frustration, pain. Hold my hand, my heart and me close. Be careful with me and understand me. I may feel off sometimes, when the...

Elf on the shelf, Magic of well-behaved kids?

I was already familiar with conscious parenting when the Elf on the Shelf became popular a few years ago, I found out about it when my kids were toddlers and I heard stories about him moving every night and being a fun addition during Christmas time. I was excited to...

Read more about Parenting Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers

If you’ve read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie, then you may have seen this editorial by W. Livingston Larned titled “Father Forgets” in Chapter One. “Often parents are tempted to criticize their children,” Mr. Carnegie writes, towards the end of a chapter highlighting the importance of not criticizing others. I found it to be such a profound moment for this dad and hope you’ll agree.

FATHER FORGETS

by W. Livingston Larned

Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.

There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.

At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, “Goodbye, Daddy!” and I frowned, and said in reply, “Hold your shoulders back!”

Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive–and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father!

Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. “What is it you want?” I snapped.

You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.

Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding–this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.

And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you that was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!

It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: “He is nothing but a boy–a little boy!”

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.

“Instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand them. Let’s try to figure out why they do what they do. That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance, and kindness.” – Dale Carnegie

Visit your child development guide at Parenting Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers to learn more about your little boy or girl.

FREE: How To Finally Get Your Child To Listen And Act By Understanding Their Development And Getting The Best Behavior Out Of Them… Even In The Hour Before Bedtime. Yes, Really.

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