Meet Awareness, Your Most Formidable Parenting Skill

parenting, , parenting skills, parenting, parent coach, parent coach los angeles, parent coach orange county, parent skills, mercedes samudio lcswBecoming aware of what’s going on in your environment allows you to make the most effective and practical decision. Once you understand a certain situation or a particular incident you automatically become aware that it exists and can be more prepared if something similar comes up again! For some, awareness is synonymous with defensiveness. For others, awareness sparks fear and doubt. Then for someone else, being aware makes you feel more equipped to deal with life. But, wherever you fall you cannot deny the importance of awareness.

 The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.

Nathaniel Branden

In parenting, being aware can be your most formidable parenting skill. When you understand the way your family tends to do things, or how your child reacts to certain situations, or at what time of the day your reserves are usually used up, you can make better decisions about how to guide your family. For example, I had one mother who told me that after 7:00pm she was at her limit. For this mother her family knew this and worked to do what was needed before 7pm – including dinner, homework, and chores. This was a great example of how being aware of what you need can actually help guide your family. And, I encourage you to be this specific about what you need, what your family needs, and how you think those needs can be me. Coming up with these things will lead you to a great awareness about you and your family!

Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.

James Thurber

What you come to see and understand is this: when each member of your family is able to share what’s going on for them, you can begin to structure your days and weeks to help meet those needs. You can begin to change some of the ineffective patterns that lead to more stress and tension in your home! That does not mean that everyone is going to be accommodated each time. But, being aware that your child is usually irritable afterschool will help you to guide the rest of the family to give that child 30 minutes after school to relax before having to talk about their day. Or, if you know that your two children tend to argue about who gets to do what will prompt you to set a schedule for who gets to lead and who’s day it is to do chores.

In a nutshell, awareness helps reduce the stress of the unknown and allows you to plan for certain occurrences that regularly happen with you and your family!

Mercedes Samudio

Research about parenting awareness suggests that “the quality of parent–child relationships will be improved by promoting parents’ ability to bring a present-moment awareness to their parenting that includes listening with full attention, bringing emotional awareness and nonjudgmental acceptance to their parenting interactions, and practicing self-regulation and compassion in their parenting relationships.” 1 Additionally, the idea that parental responsibility is more about guiding your child to be wholly healthy (physically, mentally, and emotionally) than shouldering the burden of everything that happens in your family is even more reason to pump up your awareness muscle.

On a more practical level, here are two ways that you can bring more awareness to your parenting:

1. Observe your family for a week

When you’re observing your family be sure to look for things that tend to happen daily or frequently such as morning routines or after school moods. Also, make observations about yourself during the week: when do you feel the stressed, energized, tired, hungry, etc. Take these observations and have a family meeting on a day like Saturday or Sunday (or when everyone is home) and talk about ways that you can schedule your times so that these observations can be discussed.

2. Practice patience

As your awareness sharpens you will want to change or shift things immediately. But, be patient with yourself and your family. Allow time to discuss what your awareness has taught you and then make adjustments to your daily habits as needed. For example, if you become aware that your child has difficulty getting to sleep at night try to think of ways to change the night routine and be willing to tweak the routine until it helps your child get to sleep peacefully.

To be honest, awareness can be a difficult burden to bear especially when you are just starting to use it to enhance your parenting! But, once you practice being more awareness of what happens in your home and with your family it will be a source of great data to use to help shape healthy habits and eventually decrease stress and tension.

Notes:

  1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2730447/

4 thoughts on “Meet Awareness, Your Most Formidable Parenting Skill”

  1. Great post! I like the expansion of ideas showing HOW to use awareness. What seems like such a simple concept is very useful and important. Asking ourselves the question: Can we be aware and be the observer, especially with an objective eye without taking on extra stress and negative emotions like shame?

    1. Welcome John! Thanks for the kind words! You bring up a good point about being aware snd observant without feeling things like shame. I’m a huge advocate of shifting the parent shaming culture we’ve inadvertently created. Thanks for sharing your insights! Please feel free to share your insights on other posts!

  2. Awareness, such an important skill that is often over looked. Great post!

    1. Hi Jessica! Thanks so much for your kind words. Awareness can be a skill that we forget to use in our parenting. But, when used consistently it can really enhance how we parent. Thanks for sharing your insights! I encourage you to share your insights on other posts as well!

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