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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 Parent Coaching: Raising Children Consciously

As a coach, I often have parents come and tell me how guilty they feel for yelling at their kids when they won’t listen.
But the cause of their frustration often boils down to the simple complaint:
“My kids just won’t listen.”
Often, shouting and yelling comes as a knee-jerk reaction to feeling unheard. Our subconscious mind suggests that maybe if we just spoke a little louder our children would listen and do what we tell them to do.

But it never works.

Shouting only creates more lack of actual listening, as our children hear only noise in each yelling match or they shut down with every order shouted in their direction.
As mindfulness becomes more popular and understood, we have to wonder if there’s a more conscious way of approaching an un-co-operative child. How do you mindfully get a child to listen?

Mindfulness asks us to be present within the moment, consciously with our children and seeing things from a whole view. Asking ourselves why our children don’t listen is a good place to start.
Are they focused on their own thoughts, their game or whatever they are doing? Are they tired, hungry or even possibly upset about something, lost in some replay of the day’s events, so they literally aren’t “tuned in” to what you are telling them?

Mindfulness also often asks us to reflect on ourselves, or rather see if life is reflecting from ourselves. In other words, are we, in fact, listening to our children? Are we asking them to do something we aren’t being an example of.

Taking this approach can build up a lot of resistance within parents.
We are the parents, and we’ve been told that our children HAVE to listen to us. When we were children we were told we had to listen to our elders, why should it be any different for our children?
But if we are looking for a more positive, supportive experience with our children, we have to ask if we ever felt unheard, if we felt like we couldn’t express our thoughts or feelings in the dictatorship of our childhood and if, in the long run, we actually did listen after all. Didn’t we often only jump into action when we felt we were going to get into trouble, leaving fear as our only motivation?

Mindful parents have to ask themselves, do we want our children to feel heard and understood as we want to feel ourselves or do we want them doing what we ask out of fear and simply because we’ve said so?
Children are watching and learning constantly and, in a world of technology and fast speed interactions, they are navigating different waters than most of us were at their age. But with their more advanced knowledge has also come advanced insight. Children know when we are simply saying things to distract or throw them off of something.
What that suggests is that if we’re saying no about something… it’s only fair to have a reason to back it up. Simply saying “no” with the reasoning that it’s our right to as a parent, leads to rebellion from our children who sense we aren’t fully sure of something ourselves. At the same time, saying no without foundations of reason, throws the mindful parent into confusion as we scramble for reasons which are built upon nothing.

Therefore, to mindfully get our children to listen:
1) Listen. When we ask our children questions and truly hear their answers, when we stop our distractions to truly hear them, we create the space for a real exchange and conversation.
2) Practice integrity. When we make sure our requests and words are honest and with reason, we can explain our purpose and why we need them to hear us. We can also create the opportunity for both learning and connection with our kids.
3) Look at ourselves. Are we acting how we want our children to act? Children look to example and we can’t ask anyone to do something we aren’t willing to do ourselves.

Mindful parenting is the art of presence and practice. The space of listening and recognizing our children as people, who are growing and learning just as we all are.

Is Christina your Family Alchemist™? Take our matching quiz to find out.

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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