Parenting for Individuation P1
One thing I learned early on as a mother was to rid myself of the delusion that I was going to save my kids from what I went through as a child.
My kids aren’t me. They are born into this life with their own journey to undertake and my job as their mother is to help them navigate through it. I’m not here to save them from anything. In fact, in my experience, when you try to save your kids from heartache, you’re robbing of them of the opportunity to learn how to deal with such an event effectively. By the very fact that I’m aware of family patterns and the traumas I dealt with means that they will not go through the same things.
First, I had to teach myself emotional responsibility skills. This meant learning not to blame others for how I felt all the time. Just because someone triggers you emotionally, doesn’t mean they are responsible to fix it. Effective communication with myself meant I had to learn to listen to me before I could expect others to. When I had no boundaries, I couldn’t expect anyone else to respect something I did not possess.
It requires you to go out of your comfort zone to see that you have an ego and shadow, and how they work together. You must see your destructive self-sabotaging behaviours because these will be mirrored in your children. When you can tame yours, you can teach them to do the same.
Being a conscious parent is a great undertaking. It takes significant time and energy to learn to listen to yourself first. Once you do, you have to create the time and energy to listen to your children without reverting to the whole “do as I say, not as I do” approach, and if you do, have the fortitude to stop yourself, observe what you are doing, and choose a different action.
Our children will trigger the heck out of us. They will challenge us to be better people in ways we cannot imagine. Should you be up for the task, you will create more loving communication between you and your children. This isn’t to say it’s all smooth sailing. It will be challenging to get your children to feel how they can be self responsible in situations when all they want to do is blame someone. When a friend hurts because a friend hurt their feelings.
Give them a safe space to express themselves. Ask them to own what they feel. Talk to them about what they want to do about the situation. Even if you don’t agree with their idea, don’t tell them they are wrong or bad. Make suggestions on other ways to handle the situation. Talk to them about a similar situation you’ve experienced and how you handled it. Children are far more intelligent than we think sometimes, and can understand where we are coming from if we explain it in a way they understand. If you can’t come to an agreement, suggest that they take time to think about it, and that you can discuss it later.
There are a lot of things in life that were thrown at us that we had to learn to deal with. Teaching our children the tools to deal with what life will bring to them is important for their development. Honouring their soul contract means we aren’t here to save them from anything. They are not here to be us. We are here to help them thrive, and grow into who they are meant to be, and to make decisions based on what they feel is best for them, not what we think is best.
This also meant I had to let go of what I thought they should do with their lives and guide them, rather than allow them to follow patterns just because I had. And this will be next week’s topic.
Let me know in the comments how you’ve helped your children individuate, or please ask questions for clarification.
With love,
~Kellie
Kellective Creations 