Parenting the Dr. Shefali Way

It’s taken me several days to get this on paper. Okay, not paper… I’m typing it okay. There just isn’t a better description of what I do - it doesn’t work saying it’s taken me several days to get this on the laptop. I’m slowly getting caught up on my sleep. Not that I haven’t slept, that isn’t quite right. My body has been sleeping, but my mind has been racing.

I am not physically tired… I am emotionally drained.

I spent last weekend in Long Beach with about 200 people that I didn’t know. I was invited by one of my client’s, Roma Khetarpal, author of The “Perfect” Parent: 5 Tools for Using Your Inner Perfection to Connect with Your Kids. In the year that I’ve worked with her, I’ve read her book backwards and forwards. I’ve listed to speech after speech she has given, and I’ve helped prepare full blown workshops for our school district. I thought I knew so much, was so smart, couldn’t possibly really get anything more out of this weekend than what I had already read and experienced.

Several months ago, Roma came to me with this idea that Dr. Shefali Tsabary had to come to Los Angeles and hold a 3-day weekend workshop on conscious parenting. I knew of Dr. Shefali, knew of her work and her books, but I certainly wasn’t one of her devoted followers. I don’t tend to follow the crowd or the latest new “thing” that comes along. Especially when it comes to parenting. My philosophy has always been to just parent from the heart. Take my cues from my kids. Figure it out as we go. Parenting books always made me stabby. If you know me at all, you know that I can’t stand being told what to do… and I can’t stand being told what I can’t do even more.

Nevertheless, I went down to Long Beach thinking that if nothing else, it might be a great opportunity to be in the same room with some illustrious authors and speakers. You know… just to say “I was there.”

What I wasn’t prepared for (at all) was the transformation that took place inside of me. I certainly did NOT intend to cry through half of the weekend. Thank God I totally forgot to put on eye makeup. The tears weren’t from learning that I had been doing it all wrong. My tears came from the validation that I’ve been doing so much right. It was an overwhelming feeling. Suddenly things made sense. I always wondered if I wasn’t being hard enough on the kids… that I gave them too much freedom to make their own decisions and schedule their own time. Turns out that my style of parenting wasn’t so bad after all. I think that as parents, we are always trying to play the “part” of what we believe a parent is, does, and acts like. In reality, it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. We aren’t raising children, we are raising adults - people who will have to live on their own and lead their own lives at some point. Instead of taking our cues from their needs, we project our own onto them. While their little hearts are yearning to fly, we are finding ways to keep them down. We tell them they are disrespectful, not applying themselves, acting selfish. We tell them we are disappointed, upset with their behavior, and we send them to their rooms. We treat our kids the very way we ourselves don’t want to ever be treated. Why? Are we teaching them a lesson? Or are we crushing their spirits?

Raising kids is hard work. Nobody ever said it was going to be easy. It’s time consuming and frustrating and repetitive. It’s boring sometimes. To our children, we are everything. We are their light, their safety net, their source of calm in the storm. I think we can all do better with helping them instead of telling them.

In the few days since I’ve been home, I’ve seen a change. I’m not yelling at them, I’m not begging them to do their chores or their homework. I’ve let them schedule their own afternoon time… and you know what? They have all gotten their homework done. Maybe not when I would have liked, but it got done. Maybe they didn’t all go to bed at 9pm, but eventually they DO go to bed. I’ve started asking them politely to do things, and they are responding.

The other day I had a friend who was talking about disciplining her kids. I cringed, because our first thought is always to discipline: to ground, take something away, deny a privilege. But really, what are we saying? We are telling them they were bad when what we really should be doing is helping them change the behavior. I know if I did something wrong, I wouldn’t want someone to take something away from me. Our kids are still growing, still learning. Our job is to help them through… not beat them down over it.

Okay… off my soap box. My biggest issue with all this has been getting my husband on board. He comes from a different place than I do… the Father is the dictator. It hasn’t been working for him… and now I think he is starting to see why. We can’t demand our kids respect us… we have to show them respect as well. Trust me, it’s a win-win.

I look back at my own childhood and I can so clearly see where all my issues lie. No Mom, it wasn’t with you. (She reads my blog.) It’s now my turn to work on ME so I can help THEM become the adults they were meant to be.

My kids are awesome people in their own right. I work every day to make sure I don’t screw them up.

Thank you, Dr. Shefali, for enlightening us that parenting really isn’t about the kids at all. It is about US. If you have the opportunity to see Dr. Shefali in person, I urge you to go. She is dynamic, funny, beautiful, and so passionate about conscious parenting that she WILL rub off on you. I promise.

As Roma says all the time… you already are the “perfect” parent for your kids. Sometimes we just need a reminder.