I have two children, age 2 1/2 and age 7. And they are my biggest most amazing teachers.
Today I will share with you what I think and have experienced to be the most important factors in experiencing a harmonious , fun, joyful and enriching time raising children. What I would tell parents to be or do Love yourself - I guarantee if you make loving yourself the number one priority in your life then not only will you find raising kids really easy but in fact you will find harmony in every aspect of your life. There are many books available on self love so I would urge those that are pregnant or planning to start a family to understand the importance of self love and make sure you have plenty of love to give to yourself as you start on the most amazing journey of your life. And this of course stands true for those of you who are already raising children. Abraham says “ The best gift you can give your children is your happiness” And I can’t stress enough how crucial this part of raising children is. When you are happy, your kids will respond to you better, they will cooperate with you better and they will thrive in every possible way. Now those of you who are parents already know how challenging it can get to stay happy when your child is not eating well, or sleeping well or throwing tantrums. But I can assure you if you make your own happiness a priority and not make your children's behavior or actions a reason for you to be unhappy, you will find solutions and see problems resolve themselves out without you doing anything in particular except protecting your happiness. If it means using your imagination to focus on what pleases you then do that, if it means ignoring what you see then do that, if that means giving up control then do that. I leave it up to you to figure out what you need to do to make yourself happy. but please prioritize that over anything else even if you are a new mum or dad. Intend Intend Intend - Give more energy to your intentions and vibration and less to your actions.Intend that you children stay healthy, happy and in harmony to you. Intend as often as you can. Specially when you observe things going the opposite way to your intention, be even more clear in your intention then. imagine your intention playing out, visualize your intention coming true and feel the feelings of your intention. Every night my husband and I have a practice of talking about how amazing our kids are, we have done this since we got each one back from the hospital after I gave birth to them. We do a rampage of appreciation that could last for a minute to sometimes half and hour. But we do it every single night. We have done it for so long that it comes naturally to us and not something that we have to even remind each other of. And believe me our days, weeks, months and years of raising them have reflected our vibration during that rampage of appreciation. So try doing that for your kids for a month and see the difference for yourself. Respect your children - All parents love their children but very few respect them. Showing respect to your children in your energy towards them, in your behavior and in your actions towards them is a big factor that will get you to experience raising kids who want to help you, who want to do the right thing for themselves and who turn out as happy and healthy kids. We have respected our kids from the time they were little babies, initially its via our energy and as they grew its by giving them choices, by empowering them , by respecting their desire to be independent, by talking to them in a tone and voice that reflects our respect for them. And apologizing for our slip ups when we have lost our alignment. Know this - Your children know more than you, they are already what we are trying to learn or remember to be. Feel privileged to be in their company and watch them, observe them and appreciate them. They know how to be happy, learn from them. What I would tell parents to say and remind their children. We say this to our kids every single day. Who loves you the most ? I remind our children its they themselves / source/ universe that loves them the most. That they are born champions and that no matter what we ( parents) , teachers, friends or the world says, they will always be champions and very special. This is very important to remind your kids specially the older ones. The older your child the more often you need to remind them that they are special for just being themselves. Listen to your inner voice ( you can start this one once your child is 4 or so years old). I tell my older child that his inner voice is always there to guide him and knows whats best for him more than his parents or teachers or anyone else. When I share this with parents I get a lot of them asking me if this will result in rebellious behavior or children who don’t listen to their parents and I remind these parents that in fact if you let your child decide for themselves holding an intention that what they will decide is best for them then only the best happens.I have experienced this myself and I urge you to try it and see the magic of raising happy kids. As a result of following the things that I am asking you to try, I have had such an amazing and joyful time raising my kids with minimal tantrums, hardly any melt downs, easy harmonious days and nights and wonderfulness all around day after day. I want and intend you to experience the same with your children too.