For any of you who are parents – or may become parents – you may be wondering: How do I raise a loving, resilient and responsible child? If you are like me (I’ve raised three blessed children), you may wonder: did I do a “good job”? And if there are grandchildren in the picture, what about our role with these young people? How can we help? How can we be loving, effective, and compassionate role models?
These are some of the many questions and concerns that Dr. Shefali Tsabary, Ph.D., addresses in her book “The Conscious Parent”. In this book, Dr. Tsabary details how our children can be raised as conscious adults and proposes that only when we, as parents, allow ourselves to be raised into a higher state of consciousness will we be responsible and effective leaders for our children. This, of course, relates to grand parenting roles as well.
Dr. Tsabary challenges the previous model of child raising and makes a shift from the traditional “parents know it all” approach to a mutual parent/child relationship in which the parent is learning along with the child. In her innovative approach, she recognizes and describes clearly the child’s potential to inspire a deep, soul-searching experience for the parent leading to a transformation of the parent him or herself.
As Dr. Tsabary states: “Once parents are learning alongside their children, power, control, and dominance become an archaic language. Instead, mutual kinship and spiritual partnership are the focus of the parent-child journey.”
Rather than another parenting book with clever techniques for control and quick fixes for “problems” in raising children, this book is a must-have handbook for learning a conscious approach to parenting, allowing children to be mirrors of the parent’s “forgotten self”. And once parents find their way back to who they truly are, they enter into a sacred relationship with their children: one of awareness and awakening. This is, without a doubt, a beautiful promise for the well-being of our world.
For a deeper look at her groundbreaking approach to child rearing, please take a few minutes to listen to her compelling TED Talk on Conscious Parenting. And if you want to learn yet more, read her wonderful book: The Conscious Parent.