Spiritual Parenting – I Can’t Mummy!

I Can’t !

I am sure you have all heard the saying: “there is no such thing as can’t”. Parents often try to
encourage reluctant children with this old adage.

It is very scary how quickly and easily this four letter word creeps in to our vocabularies, perhaps as
young as three years old! My son (who is nearly four and half) uses the word at least four or  five times
every day.

Instead of ignoring it and ‘helping’ him I have started to regularly question his use of the word.
It is a highly debilitating word. Say it aloud – you can actually ‘feel’ a block.

By saying ‘can’t’ your mind closes to any possibility of success.
Do you suddenly feel as though there is no point in continuing with the activity you were trying?

That is how a child feels – and that is where the barriers in life start. This is when a child’s self
esteem takes a nose dive.

Can’t is a word continually used by parents on frantic mornings or by teachers during pressure filled
lessons. It is a word that enters our vocabularies early and never leaves.

I believe that it is responsible for crushed dreams – and worse - dreams never made.

Next Post: Tips for eradicating negative language from your everyday interactions with your children. A must for Self Esteem.

Spiritual Parenting: Let Them Be!

So here is a challenging thought: Stop comparing your little cherub with the classroom genius at his school.

Refuse to take part in any thoughts that crop up when you feel as though your child is not on par with others. As Asian parents this may be a tough proposition.

A parent’s natural reaction with their child (at any age) may be to ‘push’ the child. For example many parents say to their children things like: “Little Johnny can do this – let’s try – I am sure you can too.”

Unfortunately the child will hear:
“Little Johnny is better than me and my mummy/daddy prefer him – I want to try to do it because that will make mummy and daddy happy.”

The trick to raising children with a high self-esteem – is to let this mode of thinking – go. If we insist in pursuing this route without realising its potential pitfalls, we could be in for a lifetime of comparisons. We will:
a) feel inferior in our parenting –it is somehow our fault that our child isn’t like anyone else’s or
b) feel there is something ‘wrong’ with our child!

You will then send the subliminal message to your child that in some way he isn’t good enough. It is at this point that he will start to chase a “better” “more pleasing” image of himself. He may then spend his life feeling as though he doesn’t quite measure up in the game of life.

I see and lecture teenagers with a myriad of problems, from self harm to eating disorders and often such disorders often stem from feeling inferior to others or constantly needing approval from others. They don’t know how to give it to themselves. We need to pass power on to our children.

A happy child is one who can be ‘happy’ with themselves. Not happy when someone says they are good, wonderful or intelligent. They have to feel it themselves.

See http://www.ambaraypublishing.co.uk/my-blog/spiritual-parenting-say-no-to-conventional-success/ for an excellent tip to try. The tip is towards the bottom of the article…

Spiritual Parenting: Part 1 – Dangerous Expectations

Below are quotations from Chopra’s book on Spiritual Parenting:

“We always remembered that our children were gifts from the Universe, and we let them know that we felt this way… ”

“We let them know how privileged and honoured we felt to help raise them.  We felt as though we didn’t own or possess them…”

“We didn’t project our own expectations on to them…”

“We didn’t feel the need to compare them  – for good or bad with anyone else.”

“This was our way of making them feel complete within themselves…”

Wow, what a handful of things to think about in terms of our own parenting styles and techniques. Perhaps it’s even a little uncomfortable to read such things because it makes us painfully aware of the things that we are ‘not doing’.

But the beauty of Chopra’s analysis does not concern – doing anything - at all.

On a deeper level, his words are about attempting to bring about an entire shift in mental, emotional thoughts and attitudes, that we as parents have, rather than drastically changing our actions . Only then can we be at some kind of peace with the most difficult job of all.

From my own understanding of Deepak Chopra; I firmly believe his words are not written to highlight the inadequacies of our parenting – they are merely asking us to make a shift in our everyday inter-cranial dialogues!

I was listening to a Pakistani Radio programme today on the importance of fathers in the family. Fathers, within South East Asian Families all over the world are often patriarchal, authoritative figures. The programme expressed the importance of having peaceful, communicative familial relationships and the point was made that Asian fathers often remain considerably aloof from their children – often resulting in negative relationships being carried in to adulthood. These relationships may well lead to other emotional problems in later life.

In my own life, I have witnessed this in almost every Asian family I have ever come in to contact with. Within British Asian families (and I am sure the same could be said in the US) there seems to be a disturbing need to ‘stamp our marks’ on our children.

Western Asian children often grow up with the notions that life decisions about occupations, marital partners, homes etc should be done in consultation with parents. There is a feeling that as children we must ‘please’ our parents and that we ‘owe’ them something for bringing us up.

These traditional ideas of obligation are often perpetuated by the idealism of Eastern notions that we ‘look after’ our elderly and respect them. In fact in Indian Soaps (there are hundreds) we are reminded of the value in archaic traditions.

One example may be the importance of the Indian Bahu (with her blood red vermillion and traditional garb) sacrificing all, to be accepted in to her husband’s family. People seem to applaud the archetypal daughter who massacres her desires to make her parents happy; they almost salute the sons who shun their controlling wives to put their domineering parents first.

Where on earth did we go wrong? The Indian and Pakistani media is a cultural tool and it is still flying in the face of spirituality. It is forgetting the true importance of our individual journey and how supremely important it is to achieve our ‘own’ dreams.

Off course our parents are extremely important. As many Eastern religions purport: parents are akin to Godliness. That I am not denying – because as parents we hold an awful lot of power over our children and this must be utilised wisely – or our children will not be able to fulfil their potentiality.

Next Post: The Ways In Which We Can Try to Alter Our Mindsets -  A Little.

Spiritual Parenting: Some Reflections

I think I am on a bit of a roll here because, all of a sudden, I feel I have found teachings on parenting that resonate with my deepening feelings of spirituality.  In all honesty I was going to overlook Chopra and his Spiritual Guide to Parenting. I felt that people  would misunderstand my frequent reference to Chopra as reflective of Hindu Philospohy. But he is a superstar in his own right; and revered globally!

However Chopra transcends religion in his writing. I say this with conviction – these posts are applicable to parents all over the world and to those that belong to any faith.

Rhonda Byrne’s best seller: The Secret teaches us (in a very simplistic and effective way) about the law of attraction in our lives, with the premise that the world has a divine creator.  This is what Chopra does and thus his work is open to any person who believes in some kind of ‘higher’ force or ‘spiritual being’.  In fact, it could be argued, that his philospohical musings can be enjoyed by those with no such hankerings. Obviously there was a plethora of other books on this topic that people may find just as useful.

The other real issue that I had before embarking on these animated discussions about Spiritual Parenting; was the fact that ‘spirituality’ on any level, especially in our Western World, is frequesntly shunned. We live in a secular world where discussions about faith, spirit, God or divinity are treated with abhorrence or indeed it is perceived to be in the domain of those with serious psychological disorders!

In fact religiosity after 9/11 is synonymous with terrorism.  I hope those of you who believe that there might be something to an alternative (and firmly from a non- religious) perspective on parenting than the conventional Super Nanny dialogues that we are so used to; will find my musings on these topics interesting.

Spiritual Parenting- Punishment Doesn’t Work!

Chopra says on more than one occasion that he brought up his children without reprimanding or punishing them:

“We never felt the need to punish them, although we let our children know very honestly when we were disappointed, angry or hurt. This was our way of teaching of teaching by reflection instead of rules.”

On reading this quote it becomes difficult to fathom how one is to bring up children in this way especially if routine and discipline have been an integral part of one’s parenting style for years.

I myself am a fan of Gina Ford, and if you are at all familiar with her advice and thoughts on rules and routine you will realise how defined her views are on early parenting.

I have to say that on first reading of this statement I sat open mouthed at the prospect of doing away with the ‘sad cloud’ (a friendly word for the naughty step!) I simultaneously broke in to a cold sweat at merely contemplating not being able to threaten my son with withholding his Power Rangers the next time he decided to flagrantly disregard my precious rules.

How could you bring up a child in this hippy way? Surely children need to be aware of their boundaries  and what constitutes appropriate behaviour? I feel fairly strongly about this and wholly disapprove of parents who do not challenge inappropriate behaviour.

However, I decide for the sake of this article, to give it a go. An opportunity presents itself when my son decides to call me a ‘poo poo bum bum head’ when he cannot get his own way. (Toilet humour is the order of the day amongst him and his peers at nursery at the moment – they find it incredibly funny.) However I momentarily decide to go with the confiscation threat (because I couldn’t think of what else to do) however I threatened to take his Power rangers with a lot less vehemence in my voice – my threat was almost polite. It worked.

In the Chopra spirit, I decide to do away completely with the naughty step and instead my son and I have ‘time out’ with him, to discuss his behaviour and the reasons for it. I then explain how his actions feel to me and how they might feel to ‘him’ should the tables ever be turned. So far so good. He stops and thinks about it and after about five minutes of struggle – he agrees. (And no, I am not holding a threat over him in case he doesn’t see it from my perspective).

A few days later my wayward son decides to go for a walk as I study the ingredients contained in an organic lavender foot cream in Boots. After a frantic two minutes of looking for him I find him looking at another little baby in pushchair. My natural reaction at this point would be to be ‘very cross indeed’ and moan for at least five minutes (in a quiet hiss – I don’t want to appear like an out of control Mummy – there is nothing more tacky ladies). However using divine power – I squat to his level and say in the most serene voice I have probably ever used: “Mummy is very upset. My heart hurts, I get very upset when you leave my side – do you want my heart to hurt darling? I thought I had lost you and it didn’t feel very nice.”

Okay, perhaps I sounded a tad too new age. My son also looked extremely confused: he was most definitely expecting me to go in to an awesome rage (this did make me wonder whether at his age this would be a deliberate ‘let’s wind up mummy activity’). Unbeknown to me there was a woman in our aisle who actually had the audacity to snort when she heard the “My heart hurts” bit! I have to admit I would have done the same thing before reading Deepak Chopra’s guide to ‘spiritual parenting’.

The point is – I feel that Chopra definitely has an important point. As parents we often have great demands on our time and it is all too easy to discipline children without the necessary conversation that needs to follow punishment. I think that relinquishing all of the tried and tested techniques to terminate the tiresome and terrifying behaviours, would be a tad too distressing from a parental point of view – especially for  a parent (like me) who relies on these old pearls of wisdom to control a four year old boy.

But – by just explaining my feelings to my son when he does something very naughty or socially inappropriate – it seems to have a different effect. I try to get him to ‘think’ about how he would feel if he was on the receiving end of his own behaviour. For a four year old this is a hard task – a challenging one – but one I feel that he ought to get used to. I take him out of the situation and talk. That’s sometimes difficult for me, but I believe that by encouraging children to develop their intuition and feelings of empathy and sympathy, we are helping our children enormously and giving them the necessary tools to deal with other difficult situations and people.

In conclusion, I have taken Dr Chopra with a bucket of the finest quality rock salt. I agree with his principles but I have adapted them to suit my situation. I have done away with the naughty step and as a result of a single piece of advice I feel I am relating to my son on a different level. I will however keep confiscation as a ‘punishment’ under my belt just in case the new age stuff doesn’t work one day!

Spiritual Parenting: Say NO to Conventional Success

Last week I brought Deepak Chopra’s  best selling work; ‘The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success’ - a search on www.amazon.co.uk revealed that he also  had a book on Spiritual Parenting called: “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success for Parents”. I thought that this work would be particularly pertinent given my website, my role as a Lecturer and above all the responsibility I have as a parent.

The book is not really religious: it is just a soulful insight in to the difficult job of parenting. It includes a wholly alternative way of looking at parenting to the super-nanny form of parenting that  has become so popular – especially in the UK.

There were certain suggestions that touched me and I thought I would just briefly outline, I will start with what I believe to be one of his most pertinent thoughts:

Try to digest this statement:

‘Put no pressure on them (your children) to achieve conventional success. This can be your way of telling them it is them that they are being cherished for who they are and not what you necessarily want them to become.’

I don’t know why, but this really struck me. This seems so simple– almost obvious – but I believe it is something that most parents do not think about. These messages that we give our children are often extremely subtle and over the years – go to the child’s very core.

It’s not something that we would readily like to admit; however I believe that many Asian Families are directly guilty of this type of conditioning.

It boils down to the way that many of us were brought up. I often think about the a comment I heard Meera Syal say on a television interview, that it was not Tony Blair that said “Education, Education, Education” -  it was her mother! She then went on to describe that academic success in Asian households was almost as important as eating or masala chai.  That comment could quiet easily have been made by me or any one of my Asian friends.

The importance of academic success for British Asians can be seen in the exam results at both G.C.S.E. and A Level . British Asians also have the highest rates of going on to higher education.

In my household, as well as other Asian children that I knew, the objections were not even subtle or couched in syrup…disapproval was often direct and fearsome: Why didn’t you do as well as Hannah? Who got top marks in the exam? Why did you get a B – didn’t you work hard enough?

Can you recognise any of these comments? Perhaps you have witnessed or even commented that “ You must work harder at maths – you didn’t do very well in your last test.”

We must look in to this and try to move away from such detrimental attitudes – I am not sure they have changed so much. These are not words of inspiration – they are full of condemnation.
Children are adept at picking up even the slightest hint of disapproval at ‘achievements’. They can and will internalise these comments or even facial expressions, they may strive to earn your approval and if they still fail they may withdraw and stop trying altogether.

Children must learn to strive for their own approval.

Behavioural issues, lack of interest, fearfulness and low achievement at school is often the result of a child that suffers very low self esteem. This can often be the long term  effects of the pressure that the school system and parents put on children. S.A.T’s and testing from such an early age has probably put untold amounts of pressure and negativity on to children and parents – not to mention the teachers who feel as though their professionalism is at stake should the result be low.  Surely such measures are going to convey messages to children that they will only really be cherished if they ‘perform’ to what society believes are conventional measures of success?

It is tempting to nag, criticise, punish, condemn – this often results from our own issues and problems with esteem. It results from wanting our children to succeed but not quiet knowing how to help them appropriately: in a way that is conducive to learning and developing their self image at the same time.

There are many figures out there, but one that I thought was particularly distressing believes that children receive ten negative comments to every one positive comment in an average day, both at school and at home. What do you think that this level of negativity  will do to the image that the child has of himself?

There are so many teenagers suffering from the effects of low self worth. Drug abuse, eating disorders, alcohol abuse and self harm are amongst the worst today than they ever have been.

We need to catch our children early and assure them that they are loved wholly for who they are and not what they achieve. If you interact with your children with this in mind you may well be pleasantly surprised at what they feel inspired to do.

And as Deepak Chopra says: ‘Cherish them for who they are, not for what they do!’

What you can try:

Has your child or teenager made something or written something truly beautiful?

Stop. Before commenting on it – ask them what their opinions are on the work they have done.

What do they love about it? Why is that piece of work brilliant to them? Why? Then you can agree and encourage.

If they are upset  and feel they have done poorly– ask them why? Encourage them to find their own answers to the problem and solutions. Ask them does it really matter? What can they do to put it right using their own unique way. Don’t give your opinions, help and encourage them to find their own path.