Parenting ... can it be done calmly?

I must admit, I'm a people watcher.  My excuse is that it goes with the territory.  When I'm not engrossed in shopping or having a coffee with a friend or family member, then I watch the people around me.  Because I am also passionate about parenting, I do also watch their parenting styles, especially when there's kicking and screaming involved (and that's just the parents). 

If you're a parent, you'll probably cringe at this or start getting paranoid about who's watching you in the supermarket.  But as much as we all try and modify our not so good parenting in public, kids will be kids and they seem to know when to push the buttons harder because other people are in ear shot and they can get away with more.

I talk to many parents who come to me at their wits end, having tried everything and finding nothing works.  While I'm happy to help and explore better ways of parenting with them, nothing works better than practice and learning within a group environment.  A dreaded parenting workshop!  Are they any good?  Some are, some are not and some only work while your child is young enough to have punishment work on them.

In a parenting workshop you have a group of parents who are also experiencing difficulties, some just like you, some less, some more and some who are trying to get in early.  Many parents come to my workshops asking how can I control my kid?  What punishment works?  How can I get them to stop lying to me?  How to I understand them?  How can I get them to listen?  Why do they fight so much? 

The parenting skills I teach help them deal with all of the challenges parents face and do so calmly!  The advantage of a group environment is the sharing of experiences and the opportunity it provides to practice new skills.  Over the course of a number of weeks, the parents evolve, as do their families and we all get to rejoice in the new found peace and harmony for some.  For others, it is an ongoing challenge.  The challenge is not so much the skills to practice and get accomplished at, it's the awareness of your own triggers that get in the way of being a good parent.

Our own emotional intelligence is the only thing preventing us from being fantastic communicators (and therefore amazing parents).  Emotional Intelligence is awareness.  Being totally aware that your emotional buttons have been pushed and having a willingness to examine, own and explore your own emotions, where they came from (your past experiences) and releasing them allows you to be fully in the present moment and able to think calmly and clearly. 

What do I mean about your past being connected to your emotional triggers?  Traumatic experiences in our lives set up emotional responses which can dictate how you react when similar situation occur.  So when your child is angry with you and says "I hate you" and a part of you that remembers your mother saying that in a fit of rage to you and you feeling so alone and distraught because you thought she was going to leave you, that you break down and cry leaving your child shocked watching you distraught.  Your child has said something in the fit of anger, but your reactions was born from your own childhood experience.  It's no longer valid, but you don't even know that.  All of our emotional triggers are no longer valid.  They are just pre-programmed.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to deal with your own emotional triggers rather than taking these out on your children, parents, friends or collegues.  What if you could re-programme your reaction?  Would you?  Or are you OK with loosing it and potentially damaging your relationships with others?

Truthfully, I still lose it on rare occassions.  However, I do own it, apologise and explain to the person what was going on for me.  I am 100% totally responsible for my reaction.  I wouldn't have it any other way.  I feel totally free by doing so.  I don't want to be a slave to my past and I don't want to lose my own personal power by blaming someone else for my reaction.  You will not find me saying "You make be so angry", because you can't.  Only I have the power to get angry and I chose to do it on my terms and understand where that anger comes from and deal with any old memories that I need to.  Thankfully I have all the knowledge and know how of how I can do that.  These self development tools have given me peace and happiness.  They are not difficult, quite the opposite, they are easy.  Anyone can do it.  Anyone who is willing to examing themselves compassionately and release their old hurts, pain and emotional trauma can have the freedom to choose their future because they are no longer being dictated to by their past.

So yes, parenting can be done calmly... with a bit of work, practice and compassion.

Many of my clients have asked me to combine the parenting skills with the tools and knowledge of how to release your old emotional triggers.  I would love your help and feedback on how best to do this.  I have put together a 10 question survey on parenting. Please help me to put together the most comprehensive parenting training yet by completing it and giving me your input.  It will help me to understand your needs more and to build a parenting course which will apeal to everyday parents looking for help and wanting to be the best parent they can be.

Click here to take survey and thank you in advance.

xx
Vanessa

How to make your kids safe....

Here in Australia there has been a huge story on the news about a known Paedophile Dennis Ferguson being released from jail and located in a housing complex right next door to families with kids. The families are very upset, more probably because of the intense media coverage and the pressure to "do something" to protect their children. Police have had to guard this mans abode due to protests and incidents of fighting outside of his house. He is refusing to be moved and it has also raised the question of where to? Where do you put someone who is considered the lowest of criminals? There must be hundreds of them out there. They do get released, and it is into public housing that most of them go.  They have served their time and now the tax payer gets to fund their housing and provides them with funds.

I lived in government housing when I was younger and I had a small child and was very aware that around me where drug dealers, families suffering through mental and physical abuse and people just released from jail for goodness knows what. It can be very scary when you are surrounded by this kind of energy and misery (who in their right mind would do that stuff if they were happy?).

Later in life I worked as a counsellor. I was fortunate enough to work with an amazing supervisor who had 20+ years in counselling including rape and sexual abuse counselling. She did her thesis on recovered memories and was pursued by paedophilia rings to try and not have her work released and published. What she told me scared me to death. They are out there, they are teachers, priests, corner shop owners, scout leaders, neighbour, uncles, grandparents, and fathers. They could be anyone and they work together to keep their acts below the radar as much as possible. And we can't rely upon the government to weed them out, the problem is so extensive. There is no test we can give people. It's not just about the sex either, so castrating them doesn't make it stop. It's about power and domination.

So how do you make your kids safe? I was horrified to hear our very own minister for Housing and the Status of Women Tanya Plibersek on the ABC Q and A show this "To have to explain to them why it is that they shouldn't be talking to this particular next door neighbour when they're six or eight or nine years old, I think they're very difficult things to ask parents to do".   That's exactly what we should do as parents! 

We actually don't protect our children by not providing them with information that they need to protect themselves. We make them easy targets. You need to talk to your children about this very issue.  It's just as important as everything else you teach them.  You can do it in a gentle and sensitive way and one that gets the message across.  Give them options on what actions they can take.  Some of the points to discuss should include:

• Touching - what is safe touching, who is allowed to touch their bodies and who is not and what to do if someone does touch you.
• Who is allowed to touch them - Doctors, mum, dad (but only in their safe places and with their permission - make them their own boss of their own bodies).  You also need to talk to them about the fact it could be from someone they know and may even be family.
• Grooming language - Talk to them about how these people sometimes try and make them into special friends and have secrets.
• Secrets - Talk to them about what is a good secret and what is not. Also need to talk about potential threats they may be told, like "if you tell daddy, he won't love you anymore and will give you away". Tell them that this will never happen and not to believe the person.
• Action - Tell them what to do if they feel uncomfortable - scream, run away, come to a safe place (home, or person they feel safe with). Arm your kids with knowledge and action plan if it happens. 

• Love - tell them that you will love them no matter what and that this is a very important thing to remember.  It's the one thing they need to know so that they can safely tell you if something has happened already.

The statistics are frightening, one in four girls and one in six boys. However, these are based on reported cases. There are so many unreported cases so the statistics are higher.  So don't feel helpless, feel empowered, do something that does work.  I spoke to my daughter when she was 7 (as soon as I learnt what to do by my supervising counsellor).  Kids have a different mindset, they don't worry about the big things like we do.  I just let her know that this was an important issue to me that I need her to know what to do and I had her repeat things back to me.  I ran scenarios by her and she told me what she would do.  It wasn't hard at all.  I have revisited it again when she was 10 and she still remembered it all and gave it back to me (in that bored "yes mum" voice).   I saw this as a good sign.

Actually, having Dennis Ferguson next door wouldn't be such a bad thing to me, at least I would know where he is and that my daughter and son were safe because they know what he's capable of and they would steer clear of him and tell their friends too.  Its the ones you don't know about that are the issue...