How to Become a Better Parent | Dr. Shefali on Impact Theory

The video is an interview with Dr. Shefali, a clinical psychologist and author, about her approach to conscious parenting, which focuses on the parent's own emotional and conditioned legacies and finding their own truth in order to unleash it in their child.

The video is an interview with Dr. Shefali, a clinical psychologist and author, about her approach to parenting called conscious parenting. She believes that parents need to focus on their own emotional legacies and find their own truth before they can unleash it in their child. Her approach is unconventional and controversial, as it asks parents to fix themselves first instead of trying to fix their child. The interview discusses the cycle of passing down emotional baggage from generation to generation and the epiphany Dr. Shefali had about the need to focus on the parent instead of the child.

• Dr. Shefali's approach to conscious parenting focuses on the parent's emotional and conditioned legacies and finding their own truth to unleash in their child.
• Conscious parenting is a commitment to unearthing emotional and conditioned legacies and not limiting a child's potential.
• Conscious parenting helps break the cycle of passing down emotional and conditioned legacies from generation to generation.
• Practicing conscious parenting involves mindfulness, self-awareness, questioning emotional legacies, finding one's own truth, and being present with the child.
• Parents need to realize that their child is a sovereign being with their own essence and not an extension of themselves.
• Parenting is a constant dance between stepping in and stepping out, balancing the doing with the being.
• Parents need to accept their child for who they are and shed their ideas of worth and identity.
• Conscious parenting adds up over time and requires consistency and attunement to the child's stage of development.
• Parents need to give the input that is needed and listen to their child's soul calling from within.

How to Become a Better Parent | Dr. Shefali on Impact Theory - YouTube

Introduction

• The video is an interview with Dr. Shefali, a clinical psychologist and author, about her approach to conscious parenting.
• Her approach focuses on the parent's own emotional and conditioned legacies and finding their own truth in order to unleash it in their child.

What is Conscious Parenting?

• Conscious parenting is a commitment to unearthing the emotional and conditioned legacies of your mind.
• We all inherit baggage from culture and unconscious parents and their ancestors.
• The process of consciousness in parenting mandates that the parent not hand over a prescription for success and failure, beauty and achievement.
• The parent has to deconstruct their own emotional legacies and find their own truth so that they can then unleash it in their child.
• Conscious parenting focuses on the parent and not on the kid.

Why is Conscious Parenting Important?

• Conscious parenting is important because it breaks the cycle of passing down emotional and conditioned legacies from generation to generation.
• It allows the child to figure out their own truth and not be limited by the parent's prescription for success and failure.
• It helps the parent to find their own truth and not be limited by cultural and unconscious legacies.
• It allows the parent to unleash their own truth in their child and not limit their potential.
• It helps the parent to be more present and mindful in their interactions with their child.

How to Become a Better Parent | Dr. Shefali on Impact Theory - YouTube

How to Practice Conscious Parenting?

• Practice mindfulness and self-awareness.
• Question your own emotional and conditioned legacies.
• Let go of the prescription for success and failure, beauty and achievement.
• Find your own truth and unleash it in your child.
• Be present and mindful in your interactions with your child.

What is Conscious Parenting?

• Conscious parenting is the parent's ability to realize that there's this thing called conditioning that obscures the ability to see the child for who it is.
• Parents are conditioned by their own childhood, by the unconsciousness of their parents, and by culture in terms of norms.
• Parents pluck the child's essence out and shove all this unconscious garbage in, which has never been deconstructed.
• The child never gets to figure out who it is they are, they just come to be herded into cattle.
• The child is like "hey see me" and all they see reflected back is the parents' ideation of what they should be.

Why is Conscious Parenting Important?

• There is a deep dysfunction or deep disconnection between parents and their children.
• Parents complete the checklist of success, but there is still a disconnect.
• Parents tell the child how to be, and the child never gets to figure out who it is they are.
• Children grow up last and aimless, finding who it is they are.
• Parents need to realize that their child is not owned by them.

Challenges of Conscious Parenting

• It's really tricky to know where the line is between guiding the child and owning the child.
• It's uncomfortable because most of it is in sand, and there is no line in stone.
• Life is this eternal dance between the knowing and the not knowing, between the possessing and complete non-possession, between the doing and the non-doing.
• Parents need to find their own truth in order to unleash it in their child.
• Parents need to be attuned and aligned with their child.

How to Help Parents with Conscious Parenting

• Parents need to deconstruct their own conditioning.
• Parents need to realize that their child is not an extension of themselves.
• Parents need to realize that their child is a sovereign being with their own essence.
• Parents need to listen to their child's soul calling from within.
• Parents need to be present and mindful in their interactions with their child.

The Dance of Parenting

• Parenting is a constant dance between stepping in and stepping out.
• Children are their own sovereign beings, and parents cannot own them.
• If parents don't see the line and keep going, the child will push them away.
• Parents need to understand their child's stage of development and be attuned to who they are.
• Conscious parenting is about balancing the doing with the being.

The Art of Balancing

• Parents need to create an inbuilt structure in their child's life.
• Parents need to understand that they are working with someone who is infinitely malleable.
• Parents need to balance the doing with the being.
• Parents need to connect with their child and understand that they come here to teach them how to be in the present moment.
• Parents need to accept their child for who they are and shed their ideas of worth and identity.

The Importance of Acceptance

• Most parents do not accept their children for who they are.
• Parents need to accept themselves for who they are to accept their child unequivocally.
• Parents need to shed their ideas of worth and identity.
• Parents need to recognize that their child is here to teach them how to be in the present moment.
• Parents need to understand that their child is not good enough or great enough or fabulous enough.

The Consistency of Conscious Parenting

• Conscious parenting adds up over time.
• There is a consistency to conscious parenting.
• Parents need to understand development and take a psychology course.
• Parents need to be attuned to who their child is at their stage of development.
• Parents need to give the input that is needed.

Traditional Parenting Paradigm

• Control-based, hierarchical, dogmatic, and dominant parenting paradigm.
• Parents impose their will on children and believe that children are to be seen and not heard.
• Children create a false sense of self and pretend to be obedient because they are in fear.
• Children are lifeless and scared of their parents.
• Parents rigidify everything and believe that children are minions to their directives.

Conscious Parenting

• Conscious parenting focuses on the parent's own emotional and conditioned legacies.
• Parents need to find their own truth in order to unleash it in their child.
• Parents need to discover who their children are and in that discovery, children blossom.
• Conscious parenting is creative and speaks from the soul.
• Children begin to peel away all their defenses to emerge into who they are and fall in love with themselves.

Healing the Child Within the Parent

• Dr. Shefali's work is about healing the child within the parent.
• Every human being is a child, so her work is for every human being.
• Most of us have been divorced from our truest selves because we have been raised through a conditioned lens.
• In order to recover our truest selves, we have to peel back the layers and undo all that has been done to us.
• We have to re-question all that we should have never been given answers to and discover those answers on our own.

The Power of Pain

• Parents need to realize the power of pain and our desire to fix it for our children.
• We try to mitigate and control pain for ourselves, but we've never been able to.
• Life is pain, unpredictable, and an adventure.
• Children come ready to be ever-morphing, and we need to mold ourselves to adapt to them.
• We need to surrender to life and wake up every day saying maybe this is the day I will fully give it all up and start anew.

Living in the Present Moment

• Children live in the present moment and engage with whatever it asks of them.
• Parents need to learn from their children and not rob them of their capacity to morph.
• Living in the present moment allows parents to be deeply attuned to their child's needs.
• Guidelines for parenting should emanate from the moment and not from rigid definitions.
• Parents should not hold themselves back in fear but live fully in the present moment.

Deconstructing Parental Fears

• Parents' ultimate fear is that of death, but they also fear their child being homeless, ending up in jail, or dying.
• Parents should not take their child to those places, but they cannot stop them either.
• Parents should steer their child by being deeply present to their child's needs.
• Guidelines for parenting should be flexible and emanate from the moment.
• Parents should not be stuck in the past or future but accept the is-ness of the now.

Working with Children

• Children do move and want to be connected, rested, and well-fed.
• Parents should not try to control their child but enter the present moment and deeply connect with them.
• Parents should work with what they have and accept the as-is-ness of the now.
• Parents should not be stuck in their fantasy but understand the reality of their child's needs.
• Parents should start working on their child's needs early in the evening to avoid dealing with a crying child after nine o'clock at night.

Watch the video on YouTube:
How to Become a Better Parent | Dr. Shefali on Impact Theory - YouTube