Parenting 101 - Ask teal episode about raising children in 2012 - Full clip

Today we are going to talk about parenting I get a lot of questions across my email accounts from parents that are asking how can I parent my children in alignment with that spirituality and in alignment with source energy because of this I want to tell you all parents out there let yourselves off the hook because it is not possible for you to parent perfectly and if somebody tells you that parenting is easy they're lying to themselves it was not intended to be this easy process it was intended to be fun and you will all get the children that you need we make a mistake as parents many of them we see them as innocent and unseasoned we do not see them as the eternal creators that they are just because you came into this life before they did does not mean that they are any different than you are you come here to help this third dimensional reality add to your own expansion which is the same thing that they're doing we identify ourselves as their venue of abundance as their venue through which everything flows to them and we make them believe if not, believing it ourselves that their actions and their behavior is responsible for our happiness we also see them as ours instead of children of the universe these four things which i just mentioned are the biggest mistakes we make as parents We replace the role of the universe the role which the universe was meant to fill with ourselves and we treat ourselves in children's lives as if we are gods we're not meant to be the gods of their lives we are meant to be their guides Your children are powerful creators just like you who have come to and out of life over and over again they came here to learn from life the learning from the parenthood in child role is just meant to be one component of the whole shebang it's not really your job to teach them, or to clothe them, or to house them, or to feed them doing that kind of thing for your children makes you feel good which is your indication that that is in alignment but that is not your job in being here as their parents your job is a two part process part one is to foster their independence at a very early age part too is: to demonstrate what alignment looks like there's this absolutely fabulous quote that goes like this: "example is not one way to teach it is the only way to teach" Only from our place of alignment are we capable of teaching things which are a benefit to our children instead of a detriment to them from our misalignment we teach them how to live their life out of alignment with their joy, their freedom, and their own true selves the one who is in alignment with their own guidance system with their own joy, with their own freedom, and with their own true self is the one who will teach the child to do the same and thus, the child will make decisions in their lives based on alignment instead of based on some other idea which we have been positing in the place of our own alignment this is the difference between the child who goes to get into the car at age sixteen with other children who were drunk at the time and the one who trusts in their own internal guidance system doesn't get in the car and thus, doesn't end up dead if you teach your child to stay in alignment with their own guidance system and you teach them to find freedom instead of rebellion your child will make decisions based on what's right for him or herself which is the most important thing that you can do for your children do not expect your children's behavior to be the basis of your happiness or lack thereof this sets them up to believe in their adulthood that happiness is dependent on other people it also sets them up to believe that he or she was responsible for the happiness of others that right there is the perfect ingredients for a chronically unhappy adult which let's face it all we really want for our children is that they grow up to live happy lives those people who base their parenting off of a system of punishment and reward are really the problem which is creating the society we have today which is a punishment based system we train our children and future adults out of alignment and into resistance and rebellion and you cannot ever, punish something into wellness you cannot punish anything into a place of alignment you cannot punish something into goodness those are vibrational contradictions it is impossible to punish something into the behavior which is going to benefit them the most in the end all that that does is teach a person to lose connection with their own internal guidance systems so how do we parent well? I'm gonna give you a list of do's and don'ts The single most important don't when it comes to parenthood is: do not strip your child of their self-concept so, how do we strip our child of their self-concept? 1) we find fault and we criticize our children 2) Do not do everything for them let them make their own choices We can't think for them and hope to raise adults which are functioning and creating a healthy society don't foster dependence this is only going to breed resentment and unsuccessful adults a lot of times we mistake fostering dependence for love when it's exactly the opposite we are cutting our children's legs out from under themselves do not mistake consequences with punishment and replacing consequences with lecturing and threats to understand what I mean between the difference between consequences and punishment I'll give you a scenario let's say this three-year-old is running around with a truck and now the three-year-old runs that truck into the family pet like a cat or a dog the parent who understands delivering consequences versus punishment would say something like (utilizing empathy) "Oh how sad, looks like the truck is gone" then they would go down and immediately pick the truck up and put it out of the child's reach they would not follow that up with any kind of lecturing they would allow the child to learn from the consequence of their action the parent who is utilizing punishment instead of the consequence would get super super angry at the child they may or may not take away the truck but what they're going to do is put the child in a timeout They're going to make it all about the parent against the child, versus the child learning from the consequence of running that truck into the family pet don't rescue them from their problems doing that strips them of their freedom, strips them of their ability to learn from things we have a unique opportunity when it comes to problems and that is to help children to solve things themselves, that builds an incredible self-concept for your children very loving parents come in and sort of solve everybody's problems for them they solve the children's problems for the child and the child grows up and ends up resenting the parent and being incapable of solving their own problems later in life we can help children solve their problems but we do not solve them for them don't deliver consequences with anger if you deliver consequences with anger all this does is turn the fight into the parent against the child instead of the child learning from the consequences of their actions children come into this life and they learn first off from the very beginning cause-and-effect it's a benefit for them to understand this in the third dimension and it is not a benefit for them to be stripped of that opportunity of understanding don't assume that your baby is too young to understand they are learning from the very very beginning and quite often we look at little babies who are about six months old and think: "Oh! they're too young to understand this, it's not time to set limits for them and that right there is a big mistake because you're laying the foundation before they even hit toddlerhood of what they can expect out of adults, what they can get away with, and how safe they are I want to interject here and talk to you a bit about ferberizing many of you who understand the parental system of ferberizing, will know that it's this concept, basically, that babies from the very beginning learn that they can manipulate we're not talking about six...or you know, 2 years old, 3 years old, 4 years old, we're talking babies that come into this world and from the very beginning learn that if they cry and you come, then they can manipulate you The ferberizing concept as far as Source perspective is concerned is the most damaging thing which has been created in terms of parenting before the age of about one children only cry because if one thing they have a need and if you do not meet that need whether it's to be coddled, whether it's to be fed, whether it's to be changed, you are literally undercutting the trust system between you and your child ferberizing your child is the worst thing you can do for a child's trust on this planet As a parent, it will become easier and easier for you to see the difference between a child crying out of need which it can't meet itself and a child which is crying out of manipulation it's a totally different energy and you need to trust yourself enough to know that difference as a parent, you know the difference we are incredibly underdeveloped when we come into this world the nature of being a human being makes it so that infants can't even fit through the birth canal if they come out totally developed like we do and like most animals do you that's why, when we come out we're, for lack of a better word, three months underdeveloped so we literally are incapable of meeting our own needs until were about three months old and even then, and as you know if you've raised a child there's a whole lot more needs which they can't meet themselves don't become a doormat or a dictator to your child What you want to do is become a guide the person who rescues their child from everything and the person who orders them to conform both strip the child of their self-concept, and both make their children feel powerless and as you know, I talk quite a bit about the fact that powerlessness is the number one problem to our society today it is the reason for all of our interpersonal, personal and world conflicts which we have going on today and then we come to, what I think is the last point and one of the best points of don'ts when it comes to your children Don't feed them unuseful beliefs one of the most amazing gifts of having a child is the fact that you have to examine your own limiting and beneficial beliefs you can't teach a child to believe something that you don't believe but, if you want your child to believe that they can do something you cannot tell them that they can't if you keep reinforcing: you can't do this, you can't do that, you are setting up the belief system in them: "I can't" we're laying the foundations for the belief of our children into their adulthood and so you should only be giving them beliefs which are useful and, here's the cracks for you to give them a belief which is useful you have to give them a belief which you firmly believe you can tell them one belief and then demonstrate an entirely other thing like: you create your own abundance meanwhile your mother and father (us) are going to demonstrate what it looks like to think that money doesn't grow on trees you have a gift here with your children when you're spouting out of your mouth unuseful beliefs you get to examine them and when you examine them and discover that they're unuseful you get to redo them and change them belief and desire must line up in the exact vibration for manifestation to occur so it's not enough to culture desires in children but not culture beliefs. You have to culture desires and then help them believe in line with those desires in order to help them become the manifesters of their own life since I like ending on happy notes here's my list of do's The most important thing you can do for your child is to build and healthy strong self-concept to help them build that concept number one let them think so often when kids get themselves into situations we tell them what they should think instead of let them think for themselves so let's pretend that your son or your daughter wants to go to school in slippers you may just say That's a bad idea, go put your other shoes on! That's stripping them of the ability to think through it. So, you could play a game more like: Well...Do you think your slippers are going to work at recess time? and let them think about it if they say yes slippers are going to work at recess time, then you've got to allow yourself to let go of it and let them go experience why slippers don't work at recess time but more likely your child's gonna sit there for a minute and decide to change their shoes because you've let them think about the outcome of the choice to wear slippers to school take ever opportunity you can to help them think for themselves that is going to set them up for successful adulthood 2) let them learn from their choices both the good ones and the bad ones there are no bad choices there are no failures because successful people turn their bad choices in their failures into wisdom, so we cannot make an enemy of bad choices 3) let them solve their own problems. We can help them do that by giving suggestions but we need to leave it in their camp so as to empower them to let them understand that they have the power to solve their own conflicts, and this will help them build an incredibly strong self-concept this will help them to understand their own power and to help them feel free 4) offer them empathy and understanding instead of lecturing and "I told you so" children are meant to learn from the consequences of their own actions not from your lecturing it is natural to rebel against something which is pushing negative energy towards you So when they have bad choices, when they make bad decisions, when they have what you would see as a failure, traditionally, if you offer them empathy and understanding for that decision they make suddenly you're an ally you are an ally and the enemy is the bad choice instead of you 5) let them make choices this is incredibly important for your toddlers because they allready don't feel like they have a lot of freedom and they want it. They're in that stage basically same with teenagers they're in that stage where it's all about trying to foster their own independence, it's all about their selves versus you, beacause it's the first time they can really conceptualize of themselves as a single unit so, if you allow them to make choices within the parameters of what you yourself think is acceptable it will help them feel freedom for example, you may have to leave the park at some moment during the day if you've gone to the park you have this very valuable opportunity you could look at your child and say: Do you want to leave now or do you want to leave in two minutes? The child of course will pick two minutes, what you've just done is give them freedom within the parameters of something that you can live with so, you're going to live as a happy parent and it's going to be a limit which is safe for them allow them to make a ton of mistakes this is incredibly important because like i said we only ever really learn by actually experiencing things ourselves it's not enough to just take your word for it and when you let them make a ton of mistakes when they're little the price tag is super super small compared to making a lot of mistakes in their teenagehood when they're small, making a mistake like running their tricycle into something means, a skinned knee when they're older learning from the consequences of their actions and making mistakes if they haven't been allowed to do so before means, getting in their car when they're sixteen and crashing into the side of the highway and potentially ending up dead it's difficult to watch as a parent, I understand that when you're watching a child and you know that they're about to go get hurt, not destroyed, obviously should save your children from situations if it looks like their life is on the line but, when it doesn't look like that, it's difficult to sit back and let them make the mistake even if it means a skinned knee, but that right there is what separates your child from... you know, right now in their successful adulthood from children who grow up to be adults who make tons and tons of mistakes with huge price tags later 7) Use only enforceable statements What I mean by an enforceable statement is you have no control over your child's actions, it's true when they're younger you can pick them up and control where they are physically within the world but ultimately you have no control over another person the only thing you have control over, is you and so, let's say that a child says: I don't want to brush my teeth, I don't wanna brush my teeth! Looking at them and saying: Brush your teeth! is not going to work, that is something which is completely out of your control but you can control yourself meaning you can tell the child: Well that's so sad because mommy or daddy only reads books to babies who brush their teeth then, you've put the decision and the ball back in their court and you've used an enforceable statement which you can then follow through on which has nothing to do with controlling their behavior you will have an incredibly irresponsible and very rebellious child if you use unenforceable statements because they'll learn pretty quickly I don't actually have to do anything that you say because you can't actually control me So, you want to make them aware of the fact that while you don't control them you do control you develop strategies to keep calm and to stay in alignment so you aren't basically breaking a sweat when you're parenting and flooding them with anger and negative emotion the reason is this children who watch their parents really really struggle at parenthood and struggle at life develop this understanding which looks like this if the most powerful people in my life can't control me that must mean I'm pretty bad When you make it obvious that it's very difficult to parent your child they are coming up with a terrible self-concept The self-concept is: I am bad, there is something wrong with me They personalize it and they take it as if it's their fault So, whatever it takes for you to develop strategies to decrease your stress relative to parenthood to prepare yourself for things in the future so you don't get blindsided and the more fun, and free, and easy you can make this the better chance you have of your child developing this idea: The most powerful people in my life really love me and think that I'm a good kid and it's easy for them to parent me therefore I must be pretty good 9) Don't be afraid to show your emotions this may sound like a contradiction to what I've just said, but it isn't the reason is, that you have an opportunity, when you're showing emotion, to demonstrate what it looks like to climb the emotional scale for example you could explain to them something like embarrassment. Let's say that your kid is throwing a major fit when they're throwing a major fit in the store, you could utilize things like uh... going around the corner and just disappearing on him because you can control your own body placement and then they'll pretty soon realize that that's not working to get what they want and they'll come up and they'll follow you, but you may still feel super super embarrassed so, and that may lead you looking like you're pretty angry and so, you can sit outside with your child right after you leave the store and explain to your child that you're feeling really really upset and frustrated and you need to explain: mommy feels or daddy feels really really frustrated because mommy or daddy feels embarassed i feel embarrassed because when you act that way some people, it makes mommy or daddy feel like some people think that I'm a bad parent so I'm going to sit here and try to talk my way into feeling like a good parent right now because that's what it's going to take for me to be a good parent to you and I think you deserve that and then you can demonstrate what it looks like to think your way into a better and better emotion So, they are visually seeng what it looks like to come from anger and frustration, all the way into joy and parenting in alignment and that will register in their brain for years and years to come in terms of how to talk their way out of negative emotional states so as to not make negative emotion, the enemy 10) Spend way way more time enjoying your children and having fun with them and understanding them, and having these experiences with them than you ever do delivering consequences this will help them gravitate towards positivity instead of gravitating away from negativity those two things are not the same It will also help them in their lives so as to insure that they're not trying to get any attention for negativity just because it's attention 11) set limits this may sound odd for somebody in my position, who is saying that there are no limits, to say that it's important to set limits for your children the reason is is that we're bringing them into a society which believes in limits and so raising children which are always outside the limit sets them up for failure within society in general it is possible for you to explain that there are no limits while also setting them up to succeed within a society of limits and that's super important so that they don't push the limit and end up in jail you are not breaking their spirit when you're setting limits for them instead, you are actually making them feel safe and loved and you are teaching them to feel creative within limits instead of resisting limits which is set up by society if you teach your children to resist limits which are set up by society you're setting them up to suffer in the end 12) teach your children that they create their own abundance and their own lives not that you create their abundance and lives, this is difficult because you are, for lack of a better word, the vortex through which your children flow and in the beginning, you are the vortex through which all things flow to your child things like clothing, things like shelter, things like teaching but for them to believe that you are the vortex through which everything comes for them is a misunderstanding and it definitely hurts them in the end when you're a parent who really can't provide something for your child because of lack of money or whatever it is to look at your child and say I can't do that, you can't do that is detrimental what it can be replaced with, is something like: mommy does not have a good enough vibration relative to money to have enough to get that right now but I am not your only way to get that item that they're wanting so much so you can explain to them how to create with their own mind, you can explain that the whole universe is their venue of abundance and if it doesn't come through you, if they focus enough it'll come through something or someone else or some other opportunity They don't have to look at you as if you're this big limit to them in terms of what you can and can't do for them expect the best from them regardless of what has happened in the past you cannot desire a behavior from a child and expect a different behavior and get what you want you have to find a way to talk your way into expecting the best from them paying attention to their best qualities and what you'll find is that pretty soon they'll start lining up with your new expectation 14) Help them understand their own internal guidance system we grow up, for the most part in a society, so far not understanding what our emotions are if you explain to your children what their emotions are and how to dictate their emotions based on the thought they're thinking and to teach them to control what they're thinking about, so as to control their emotional guidance system so as to go in the direction of what they feel is joy you will be giving them the most valuable key, when it comes to parenthood you would teach them how to stay in alignment with themselves which, trust me, at the end of the day that's all there is because by the time they're sixteen years old you have absolutely no control before that, lets go twelve and thirteen. By twelve and thirteen years old you have no control over your children whatsoever so it's super important that before then you bring them into awareness of their own guidance system because you can't be there whispering in their ear, being the angel on their shoulder telling them which way to go in their life they have to be able to trust their own internal guidance system to get them through this life cuz you simply can't be there all the time 15) lead by example it is the only way to teach your children for example, if you want your child to enjoy chores you better act like you enjoy chores and find a way to enjoy it you can give them examples of solving problems you can give them an example of behavior towards others most importantly you want to give your child example of what it looks like to stay in alignment with who you are to stay in alignment with joy to stay in alignment with what you think is right and wrong you have to demonstrate what it looks like to stay in your own alignment if you want your children to do the same that is the most beneficial thing you can do for them if you are constantly demonstrating that it's appropriate to choose someone else's happiness over your own happiness you will raise a child who does the same so figure out what it is you want to teach them in terms of alignment figure out what it is you want for them to be doing or not doing what beliefs you want them to hold and not hold and become the manifestation of it parenting is one of the biggest opportunities for expansion in this universe you really don't understand love until you have a child many of you who have children know exactly what I mean So don't expect perfection it's not what your children want anyways none of your children coming down to this reality said: Parent of mine, I expected you to be in the exact place of perfection before I came down No! they knew exactly what they were getting into they came down here so as to utilize this relationship between you and them to aid in their own expansion so don't fall into guilt the access of your power is always in the now so it's never too late to switch up your game regardless of having made a mistake five years ago or five minutes ago you can always choose to parent in alignment with the parent you want to be right now they will be learning regardless of whether you parent well or parent terribly because, either way, their expansion is being caused by the relationship So, the question is: What do you want their concepts and their beliefs about themselves and about the world, to become? you've better become an example of exactly that for this reason children are your greatest excuse to use as a means to become more How valuable is it to have created in your life an excuse for you to have to stay in alignment with who you really are to have to stay in alignment with your own internal guidance system it's fabulous, our children are our greatest teachers because they are the excuse which forces us to become the manifestation of that which we really want to be so all of that being said, I could sum this up very quickly and tell you that the best thing that you can do for your children, period, the end... (or anybody) but with this we're going through children, because children really are the basis by which our future becomes the best thing you can do for your children is to believe in them and to trust them with themselves nothing erodes the self-concept like saying: I know better for you what is right for you, than you do when you look in your child's face and you say: I believe in you, I believe that you can do anything I trust for you to know what's right for you, I trust for you to know what's right vs. wrong for you I trust you to go in the direction of what's right all the time for you and I trust that you know what that is you are giving your child and incredibly invaluable thing which is you're handing them this self-concept and freedom to create their lives and to create themselves in line with their own true self with their own concept with that which who they were intended to be before they came here you're letting them do exactly what they intended from Source perspective to do down here on this planet so the most important thing you can do is trust your children with themselves and to teach them how to do the same and when you start doing this you will literally see them bloom right in front of your eyes Subtitles by the Amara.org community