Conscious Parenting (Healthy Discipline)

Threatening/beating/shouting at your children when they make mistakes, is child abuse. I know. It hurts to accept because nobody who loves their children, or their own public image for that matter, would casually admit that they happily abuse their children! Or any other child – which is funny because you wouldn’t dream of treating someone else’s child how you treat your own, so why?

I’m not judging anyone or trying to offend anyone but I’m hoping that this is going to be the wake up call that a lot of parents are in need of right now to break those generational curses that we cling onto – especially in the melanted community!

Why is child abuse a generational curse? It boils down to slavery. During slavery, the slave masters/abusers would instil fear and physical punishment onto the slaves to get them to do what they were told. The slave masters needed their work done in a timely and focused manner and with repeated abuse the slaves were conditioned to know that if they stepped out of line came great danger, the intrinsic abuse became so demoralizing that for most, they eventually just fell in line, without question, while others made it their mission to rebel. Our ancestors learned, experientially that with violence and fear came great results and through the generations adopted these controlling and abusive ways of being listened to.

Now imagine your child in your minds eye for a moment, imagine them being spoken to, or beaten by another adult. How did that make you feel? What would you say to them? So how could you feel comfortable doing it to your own child, knowing that you are that child’s safe space, their comfort, the person who is teaching them the basis of everything that they will learn about trust and respect?

Conscious Parenting is about thinking to the future, thinking about how you can consciously avoid having a negative impact on your child and their mental health. The biggest way you can do this is to stop making their safe space a place of fear. In my opinion, parents instil fear because it brings fast responses - conscious parenting, or at least parenting without fear takes a lot of patience, that in this microwave society, is scarce! We’ve become lazy, valuing fear over respect because it works faster.

But children act out for a reason, and often, the more controlling the parent is, the more rebellious the child will be, because there is a power struggle.

Understanding that your child is their own person and not an extension of you, will help you to realise that your personality type may trigger your children! And people can react in any way to a trigger, especially a child who is still developing emotionally, especially a child that due to their upbringing, cant differentiate between love & danger – Children need two things, which when they don’t get, they “misbehave” those things are: attention & power.

I say “misbehave” because children don’t misbehave, that’s just the word we use to shame them for their actions. They are behaving in the way their child mind sees fit. They’re usually reacting to the way that they feel with the lack of attention, or power.

to find out how to help your children stop acting out & learn healthy discipline methods for when they do, Look out for the conscious parenting workshop.