conscious parenting Archives - Real Life Parent Guide

November 27, 2018 by Kim Muench Leave a Comment

What does it mean to be the best parent for your kids?

I have been talking about conscious parenting both publicly and within my family conversations for the past several years. I believe I have always practiced being a conscious parent, but I first understood the term itself and felt it aligned with the way I was parenting our five kids after reading The Conscious Parent by Dr. Shefali Tsabary in 2014.

I have been curious about what my parenting has meant to the adult children in my life, so while the oldest three boys were home for Thanksgiving weekend I decided I wanted to ask each of them some questions about their perception and experience around the way they were parented. There is value in understanding my adult children’s point of view of my parenting practice as I continue through the teen years with Mia (13) and Maddux (15). I know I will continue to talk with them and other young adults as I begin writing a book on the practice of parenting with intention.

The videos of each interview range from 5-10 minutes in length. Truth be told, I could have talked with Nick, Allen-Michael, and Brigham much longer because I had more questions, but they’d all been so kind as to immediately agree to be videotaped with me that I didn’t want to push it.

Under each video are additional comments and reflection about the content.

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A little background about my relationship with Nick (for those who may not be aware)…he came into my life just shy of my 19th birthday, shortly after I finished my freshman year in college. I had a very upper-middle-class upbringing and getting pregnant forced me to grow up really quickly. When I made the decision to raise Nick, I was asked to leave my family home. I lived on welfare until I could afford to make ends meet with full-time secretarial work, my mom taking care of Nick so I could do that, and support from Nick’s dad.

His dad and I stayed together for the first few years of Nick’s life, but our relationship was very unhealthy and it eventually ended. This forced Nick to go between two very different households for the remainder of his childhood. While I believe Nick’s dad loved him very much, he was fighting a personal battle that often led to abuse of our son. Nick hid this well, and though I cannot go back and change anything about his experience, I value Nick’s honesty in telling me that I could have tried harder to get him to share more about his weekly visits with his dad. In hindsight I recognize it always took 2-3 days for Nick to readjust to being home with us, and to this day I don’t know the extent of what he experienced physically or mentally while in his dad’s care. His dad passed away in 2010 at the age of forty-two and Nick has done a lot of self-work to move forward past his childhood experience and use of alcohol to self-medicate. Though I didn’t know how difficult his teen years were, I do know I often bragged to my friends about how close I felt our relationship was. We have always been close. In many ways we grew up together. Today Nick is sober, married, and happy in the life he and his wife have built together. Nick and I have a very open, easy-going relationship that I treasure.

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Allen-Michael and I have enjoyed many deep conversations in his adulthood. At twenty-five his faith (which has actively developed over the past decade) has led him to travel both the country and the world sharing his love of God and Catholicism with hundreds of young people. He is now in his first year of seminary. It’s interesting because at a time when his faith-life was growing in one direction (in the tradition we…admittedly inconsistently…imparted on him during his childhood), mine has taken a complete shift into a deeper belief and development in a spiritual relationship with God that has nothing to do with religion or church practices. The beautiful thing about this is that we both choose to focus on what we agree on (God exists/there is something larger than ourselves going on/we are an extension of God called upon to serve others) rather than the beliefs we don’t share. While (to be brutally honest) I may not have chosen this path for him, it is not about me. The calling he is following is a good example of releasing our need to have control over our children and their outcomes. The kids who came through me will live out their greatest purpose to the best of their ability and my primary role is to appreciate and support them in that endeavor. I know that if Allen-Michael continues through seminary he will one day make a faithful father to many people. It’s a gift to watch him continue to unfold into a gentle yet strong young man.

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Brigham (20, a junior in college) has blessed me and our family so often with his free-spirit…he was the most hesitant to answer my questions without knowing what they were first. Brigham has always wanted to know as much as possible before things happen. This phase of parenting, during the college years, can be be most challenging (based on my perspective having parented for three decades through all phases). It’s really a time when what you’ve worked to model and instill comes through in your child’s actions. Brigham works diligently at everything he does, but at the same time, he’s also very go-with-the flow. There are a lot of moments when anxiety about a choice he might make could hamper our relationship if I chose to defer to fear (breeding disconnection between he and I) instead of holding space for any choice he makes because I understand I am not in control of, responsible for, nor do I want to get in the way of his learning for himself the lessons life is willing to teach him.

It is in our greatest challenges that we grow as human beings.

I believe, and have been outspoken about in many ways over the past few years, raising children is our greatest calling and it needs to evolve from one where the emphasis is on teaching and controlling kids to a place where our role is to guide them by learning who it is they are as we parent WITH them. Putting structure and boundaries in place while giving them lots of choices to discover who they are. I believe a mutually respectful friendship is the end goal when they are independent adults. When and if my kids decide to have children of their own, I’d like them to want me to be a part of their kids lives, not out of obligation but because they love and respect the person I have been throughout their lives.

Parenting is about growing you while raising them (hmmm…sounds like the title of a book…), for me this includes choosing to start and stay involved in conversations that may be difficult in order to develop better connections with my kids, it means making my own physical/emotional/spiritual life a priority so I can be emotionally present for others, and it means speaking out and getting involved in the world wherever I can to bring awareness to the importance of parenting with intention.

If I can be of service to you in navigating the parent/child relationship(s) in your life, please email me through this site or text me at 972-689-0250.

October 7, 2016 by Kim Muench Leave a Comment

Shedding light on the top parenting myths

There are no shortage of parenting books on the market (I know this because I read them…), and tons of parenting advice to be found online (like this blog, LOL), even though there are resources readily available to parents of kids all ages, we continue to struggle with some very basic myths about parenting which, if we allow them to, can be debilitating to our most important relationships.

Here are a few I came up with:

The hardest stage of parenting is…new parents will likely tell you it’s those first few months of sleepless nights as well as around the clock diaper changes and feedings, not to mention the gravity of reality setting in that you are in charge of this very dependent, tiny human being and your life is no longer your own. Parents of toddlers would definitely say it’s trying to survive the terrible twos. Preschool parents might say they have it the hardest because they deal with the daily frustrations and assertions of their child’s emerging independence (wanting to do it all themselves when they can’t). Elementary school parents would complain about adding sports, arts, homework, and teaching personal responsibility to the mix of home life, while middle school parents will talk about changing hormones, emotional ups and downs, not to mention social drama. Parents of teenagers will say they have it the worst because even though they’ve managed to get through the first several parenting stages, everyone knows how much anxiety goes into making sure your kid succeeds in school, adjusts socially, begins navigating the dating world, and learns important life skills before they leave the home for college. So you’d think college parents would say the worst is behind them…but no, parents of college students wonder how they’ll pay for the education and whether or not their child will thrive in the campus environment, if their child will be wise enough to make healthy decisions for themselves when they aren’t supervised, and whether or not their young adult will find a “good” job after college.

The hardest stage of parenting is…whatever stage of parenting you are in at the moment. Because, as you can see, every age and developmental stage has it’s challenges. BUT, every stage also has it’s rewards! Some of us are in multiple stages at any given moment, but each one of us is given a choice daily as to how to approach the parent/child relationship. The more relaxed you can be about what you are experiencing at the time, the better the connection you’ll be able to have with your child.

We should know how to do this! For whatever reason parents feel the job should come as second nature. Why is this? While there are many classes and resources to participate in before your baby arrives, they usually only prepare you for labor/delivery/newborn care and sometimes how to incorporate a new sibling into the family (no matter how much you read or how many classes you attend is anyone ever really prepared for parenthood?), there isn’t much in the way of classes offered after that, and many parents don’t have the luxury of time to read extensively…even if it is about the most important role they can play in their adult life. Unless you’ve got a great mom, mother-in-law, or girlfriend who is in the trenches with you, a lot of time and energy is spent guessing what will work with your kids. Many people have really challenging childhoods and don’t have any reference as to how to parent. Then there are some who will choose to do the opposite of what their parents did, and others lead with exactly what they experienced without questioning or looking for alternatives that may be a better fit for family life today.

We should not “know” how to do this. How many ways has the world changed just in the last two decades? Our parent’s approach to raising kids was likely loosely based on the way they were raised (with a mix in of the baggage they took away from their upbringing). The way our parents, their parents, and prior generations raised their children just does not work well in the culture we are raising our kids in today. These statements provide two conclusions: tapping into our own voice and intuition about parenting our children is essential [instead of listening to the constant “noise” and messages that come at us each day]. And, there is no shame in searching for suitable answers when we are stumped about a situation or relationship challenge we are experiencing with our kids.

No one else is experiencing this problem with their kid. We feel alone, though all of us struggle from time to time with our kids. Especially true is the cover up in this age of socially sharing the “highlight” reel…rarely are parenting problems talked about (or if they are it’s usually with sarcasm), so we feel like we can’t really openly share our parenting struggles either.

You wouldn’t believe how many people struggle with the same parenting issues! In fact, there are several I would say are pretty universal right now; dealing with kids who have extreme anxiety, parents really concerned about their kids behavior/achievement or lack thereof, kids friendship drama and social acceptance, kids not listening, and one I hear A LOT…should I continue to push my child in __________ or just let them move on if they have told me that’s what they want to do. The other night I had the pleasure of meeting with a group of parents who all agreed they were comforted by being in a room with people honest and open enough to share their parenting struggles. Kids need support…BUT SO DO PARENTS! That was the goal of our meeting, and I am excited to continue to build a group of moms and dads who want support and who are willing to give it as well.

It’s too late…I’ve already messed my kid up, or I don’t have the kind of connection I always thought I’d have with my son/daughter and I don’t know how to change that. They don’t like me because of the way I have been parenting them.

I am a firm believer that IT’S NEVER TOO LATE. Taking a page out of my own life, I will tell you I had a call from my dad earlier this week who wanted to talk about a homily he’d recently heard at church about the Right to Life. He was honest about how it had touched him and caused him remember all too clearly how he’d handled my pregnancy when I was eighteen. He acknowledged just how strong I was at that time, and really how difficult my decision to have my son and raise him must have been for me without his full support. My son is almost thirty years old…this is something that I truly never thought I would hear my dad ever say to me.

It’s never too late.

To be a parent who has a healthy, happy, functional, mutually respectful connection with their children you really only need a few things: you need to be honest with yourself and with them, you need to set and consistently hold realistic boundaries based on your child’s developmental stage, and you need to be vulnerable…don’t be afraid to say you are sorry when you are wrong, or to let them see you are human. And, don’t get so disconnected from your own childhood you aren’t able to show them your playful side.

I’m curious…what parenting myths have I missed? Comment below or send me an email at realifeparentguide@gmail.com.

April 13, 2016 by Kim Muench Leave a Comment

My parenting? Why would I want to look at THAT?!

Look at these stinkers…aren’t they precious?!

This picture of my youngest two kids was taken on Independence Day, 2008 right about the time my parenting got seriously called into question by…me.

It started innocently enough, the radio station in our minivan was playing the top pop songs when, for some reason, I really began to tune in to the lyrics. Oh wait a minute, I know why…it was because Mia began to sing along with a Rihanna tune word-for-word making my ears perk up to know, brand new to age four, she was talking about the smell of sex (of course totally oblivious to what the song really meant). The moment gave me great pause because I realized whether she understood the lyrics in that moment or not, she was internalizing the message.

I know I was sensitive to this possibility because, on the opposite end of my parenting spectrum at the time, was my eldest son struggling through addiction. And, while I wasted little time on why he was enmeshed in this disease, and certainly no time on “why me”, the situation was alarming enough to my heart and mind to really question what I was bringing, in terms of the outside world and my own attitude and energy, into my impressionable children’s lives.

What I have found in the years since I began looking at my parenting is that we are all quite susceptible to the way we were raised and how, for many of us, our inner child was silenced and stifled from becoming who we were meant to be…as a matter of fact, many of us spend our adult years trying to figure out who we really are and what truly matters on our life journey (“finding oneself”) mainly because our role models, teachers, coaches and others found ways to tell us who we were, what we could like, how to behave when we were young.

The second avenue of lasting impression on us can be seen in the daily messages we receive and internalize. We live in a culture that, in large part, continuously, blatantly and indirectly, emphasizes money, physical beauty, competition, and external achievement in the name of perseverance at all costs, dedication no matter what, and loyalty to being committed…unless it’s a lifetime.

Rather than teaching us empathy, compassion, tolerance, diversity, self-acceptance and inner beauty.

And it’s really easy as a parent to look the other way (or play deaf) to popular song lyrics or questionable movies or television shows. In the name of what? Not wanting to cause waves, to look “uncool”, or because of a desire to stay on your child’s “good” side.

The thing of it is, we don’t even realize how deeply our upbringing affects us until we have young children of our own and we begin to catch ourselves saying things like, “I’m turning into my mother.” Or, “My dad said there’d be payback one day.” Aspects of our early years, such as how our parents related to one another, what roles each played in the everyday family atmosphere we were surrounded in, and how they handled stressful situations all write directly on who we become and how we deal with life.

I see so clearly at times the unfinished business I carry from my family of origin being played out in my marriage, in my relationships with my kids, and even in choosing to confront a neighbor or friend about a conflict I have with them.

I replaced my dad with my husband to the tune of for years not being able to exercise my voice for fear of not being heard, or being misunderstood, or worse yet dismissed as not important or less than worthwhile.

Which isn’t fair to my husband or my dad…however, it’s ME who’s had to work hard at finding and regaining my voice, sense of self, and value.

What I learned by osmosis from my wonderful, nurturing mom was that kids and grandkids come before my own needs, voice, desires. While caring for family is incredibly important, sacrificing oneself in the process is, I know, not what my mom had in mind, and surely not what she wanted me to pick up on.

The value in looking back at the feelings surrounding your raising throughout your family of origin allows you to remember and connect how those crucial personality traits and characteristics play out in our lives, especially in our close relationships, today.

When we don’t take stock or practice making changes healthier for ourselves and our kids, we are apt to repeat patterns and cycles.

Which is a disservice to the children we called into the world to help us see exactly where we needed to find and grow ourselves.

So, stop blaming your child for their misbehavior and look at why it’s triggering your frustration, disappointment, and anxiety. And then begin to work on where YOU need to grow.

Maybe it begins with changing the radio station…

February 29, 2016 by Kim Muench Leave a Comment

What it’s like to be a conscious parent in a dominant world…

Most of us spend a great deal of time walking about life half asleep.

Especially when it comes to raising our children.

And then we wonder why, by the time they are teenagers (sometimes long before), we get eye rolls, back talk, and feel generally disrespected.

There is good reason our kids rebel against the nuturing, caring, sacrificing individuals who brought them so lovingly into the world.

It’s because we treat them as extensions of ourselves, rather than as the individuals they were brought into the world (yes, through us) to become.

We use our children to feel better about ourselves. For example, we encourage a sport, academics, a hobby, a college from the time they are old enough to walk, in order to feel a sense of accomplishment that we are lacking within ourselves.

And then when they don’t meet our expectations, or want to quit the team, or pursue a musical instrument we know nothing about (and care even less for) we have the audacity to get upset with them.

Don’t get me wrong, we don’t do this with malicious intent, most of the time we are completely unaware we are even doing it at all.

You may argue you just “want the best” for your child, or that “he/she really loves the sport”, but our children are much wiser than we give them credit for, and they are in touch with the energy we put out around the expectations we have of them.

And, much of the expectation we have of them centers around filling our inner lack, which, by the way, developed in our own raising.

Let me give you a clear, very recent example from my own parenting…

About a week ago, my son received the final of five answers to last fall’s college applications. Though this wasn’t his first pick school, we felt he was a strong candidate. When the letter arrived, with some conditions for enrollment attached, I immediately became personally offended (triggered) and incredibly self-righteous.

Though I tried not to let this show to my son. Because, after all, I am the “conscious” parent who loves, supports, and accepts everyone right where they are.

My son appeared, on the outside, to blow it off, saying it wasn’t really something he was considering anyway, so he was dismissing the school completely. From my mouth came, “Okay Brigham if that’s your decision, that’s fine with me.”

But, I was lying.

I struggled for a few days with that stupid letter because I found it personally upsetting they didn’t accept MY child into their program. After all, he is a wonderful person, a committed student, and would be an asset to their campus (in my opinion)…why didn’t THEY see this?!

Thinking further through this situation, I realized by their not accepting him into the school I was feeling personally rejected. Something I felt a lot of around academics as a child/teen…this brought up all those feelings of unworthiness inside of ME again.

Not only that, gods-honest-truth-be-told, I wasn’t looking forward to having to share this news with a few people I knew would be asking.

This from the woman who works so hard at not caring what other people think.

The ability to take a simple situation, like a letter in the mail from an admissions office, and be in tune with myself enough to (a) observe my reaction, and (b) stay with the feelings to understand where it was coming from, and finally to (c) give myself permission to acknowledge and then release/disconnect it from my child is what’s called conscious parenting.

And it takes work! And it is a p-r-a-c-t-i-c-e!

But it is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO worth it to be able to help my kids to know they are deeply loved for exactly who they are. And that I am right behind them (sometimes I have to think through it first…) in whatever choices they make. I fully believe each one of my children is a spirit willing to teach me where I need to grow.

Someone parenting from the traditional “dominant” paradigm might have become resentful of the child for not working hard enough at school, for being too laid-back about taking the SAT seriously, or want to rail at the school itself for it’s inability to see the value in his application to the institution. In the meantime causing the child feel badly about his worth and likely not changing any of the outcome, but to instill (or compound) his own sense of inner lack.

In talking with parents (raising kids of all ages) about their trials and disappointments over behavior/grades/sporting achievements/personality conflicts, I am even more committed to the movement of practicing peaceful, conscious parenting.

And to helping others do the same. Because there is no question in my mind the problems we are experiencing in our home life today stem from our own inner lack which we (often inadvertently) project onto our kids.

That, and the fact we all try to do too much. Contrary to what the world continues to tell us, WE CANNOT DO IT ALL. I have decided I would rather do less and do it with presence of mind, than to run myself ragged through a job and kids activities in order to validate myself as an “accomplished” person.

Conscious parenting is not for the weak, the faint of heart, or for those who think they can snap their fingers and it arrives. It IS for those willing to take an open, honest look at themselves, their upbringing, their motivation with their own children…and to work hard at the relationships in their lives…starting with the one they have with themselves.

What was the last parenting challenge you faced? What thoughts or feelings did it bring up in you? How is your inner lack being played out through your children?

All big questions…but all worth answering in working towards a more peace-filled home environment.

I’m curious…what parenting myths have I missed? Comment below or send me an email at realifeparentguide@gmail.com.

I see so clearly at times the unfinished business I carry from my family of origin being played out in my marriage, in my relationships with my kids, and even in choosing to confront a neighbor or friend about a conflict I have with them.

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