It isn’t easy to be a parent in the age of social media, filled with stories and pictures of “perfect” families. If we refer to modern norms, then to be a good parent, you should practice breastfeeding and co-sleeping, feed your child organic food, wrap them in muslin diapers, and, as early as five months old, enroll them in early development classes, Montessori kindergarten, and mental arithmetic programs. And keep a blog about it, from the comments to which you will still regularly learn that you are doing everything wrong, and somewhere there are even more responsible and conscious parents.
When a family prepares for a baby, expectant parents are determined to be good, responsible, and conscious. At first, these aspirations have to do with how to conceive and carry a healthy baby, where to give birth, what stroller to buy, how to feed a baby, and how to care for them. As the child grows, the tasks become more complex, and the challenges of parenting arise.
We often hear the phrase “to be a conscious parent,” but what does it really mean, and on what principles is this conscious parenting based? Do we have to forget about things that we enjoy, like watching Netflix or playing in the live casino that accept Bitcoin? Or should we let our kids do anything they want?
The idea of conscious parenting is based on understanding the needs of the child, knowing the peculiarities of their development in each period, and working with your own emotions.
The main goal of any parent is to raise a child happy, make them feel good in society and alone with themselves, find their vocation, and live their own life. In essence, conscious parenting fits into three simple rules.
Respect the Child as an Individual
Remember that your child isn’t your property or part of you. They came into this world to live their lives, not to fulfill their childhood dreams and meet their expectations. And certainly not so that you can brag about their successes to others. Children should have the right to choose their own path, even if that path is ultimately not pleasant or understandable to them. The basic idea is: “I may not approve of your choices, but I love you, and therefore I am willing to accept them.”
Love and Protect
To raise a mature and stable adult, parents need to provide their child with just two things: unconditional love and protection. While expressing them not only in words but also in deeds. Unconditional protection means standing up a mountain in front of the world for your child, no matter what he or she has done. Unconditional love is when your child knows that you love them despite bad grades or individual misbehavior. Unconditional love is acceptance.
Safeguard Against Violence
Violence isn’t only physical punishment. It’s also psychological pressure, humiliation, insults, ignoring, and many other actions that do a lot of damage to the child’s psyche. Children’s psyche usually displaces pain and resentment, but later in adulthood, the consequences of such traumas sometimes make happiness and well-being impossible.
If those who love you hurt you, it means that you are so bad that you aren’t worthy to be happy; this is how children’s brains perceive parental cruelty. As a result, the child’s aggression, neglect, low self-esteem, and inability to build healthy relationships as an adult.
Conscious parenthood is also a responsibility for the experience that the child will bring out of childhood. Only a child who grows up in an atmosphere of love, care, and acceptance can become a happy, stable, and self-confident adult. It’s important that in adulthood the child remembers happy laughter, fun games, warm hugs, love, and support of parents, not criticism, yelling, or scolding for grades.