Dear Parents.....

I know that we are the busiest bees on this earth,  we try to complete each and every work we have with conviction and perfection. But still sometimes we feel frustrated, and depressed. When especially we experience that we and our kids are not getting along well, and when we have strained relations. 

For example:

1. When our kids don't share with us anything or share things partially. We feel upset and taken for granted.

2. When our kids make friends without our consent we get hurt.

3. When they don't listen to us. We feel weak, not valued. And suddenly warlike situation takes place. And world's whole panicky enter into us and become over vigilant distrustful parents. Fights start and when the whole focus gets shifted from child to parents no one even realise.

So writing this letter specially for all of you. Today we thought for you and then decided that rather than just thinking about you how about having dialogue through this letter with you? So this is an effort done by us to reach to you. 

Hello!! Dear Parents,

I know you will not have much time to read this letter because you are very busy with your work and with your children's exam. , their study take ups, and you don't have to look at only one kid's exam. but also the other sibling who needs you too!!

And if your husband is around then sometimes it becomes more difficult, suddenly situation becomes more demanding. Your time, energy and effort is divided into all three people. Of course sometimes when your husband has time then your tension can be shared by your husband too!! But overall the whole family goes through this exam fever.

I am just imagining that there are four people in the family. There can be more or less no. of people in the family. When more siblings are there in the family, situation is even more pressing.

The whole idea of writing this letter is not to scare you but to help you and share some of your tension. We know that we cannot be there and help you directly but yes we can help you virtually.

So actually what can we do as parents.

CREATING "BEING THERE" FEELING :

Listen your kids carefully, non-judgmentally. Try to keep your professional hazards away. Be there, try to be there 100%. I know it's difficult, but we need to know exactly what our kids are going through. So be there to create a comfortable atmosphere. So they will share anything with you. 

We simply cannot do much but what we can do is we can make our children feel that we are always there. We cannot actually help them in their studies, we know there are some of the parents who are actually helping their children in their studies and they are qualified to help them too, but even if we can see what they need during this time that also becomes a great help to them. 

So, even a glass of fresh water or a fresh fruit juice works.

EMPATHISING WITH THEM :

This is the time that they need support and people around them whom they can share there tensions. Try to understand their feelings. Understand the message beneath that. That will need some time to reach that space. Give that time may be some seconds to some minutes to reach there, there where your cord with your kids will remain intact. Try to avoid pushing hot buttons. 

Empathising is not let them do whatever they want to do always, but empathising is that recognising their feelings and needs to do those things, and having dialogue with them, and then giving them specific ideas what and why you want some things to be changed by them. Without violating their respect.

Many parents say that, who has so much time to do all this, or they try to help but the children don't like it. If so then we want to ask these parents that what do they do? And the answers we get are not at all a good story. As we become angry, our brains do not work, we use wrong words, heated unstoppable arguments, showing each others mistakes and the end result is ignoring each other, and creating hatred for each other.

We only want to say that may be at that time then we have to change our perspective towards these situations. Because that is not going to keep our bond with our kids remain same as before. This is a challenging situation for parents. So empathise with your children and with yourself too. e.g. what are my emotions and do I really want them?  and if ever you find that you don't want them or that is not working at all, please dare to alter them to see the positive difference. 

RESPONDING THAN REACTING :

Dear parents, reaction is our default mode / autopilot mode. That always comes immediate and we love to get hijacked by those emotions.  We get stuck in that zone and don't want to move from there. But always remember we can shift from there and that's not the end. Rather than giving immediate reaction, take a PAUSE of some seconds, or minutes, allow your breath come to normal and then rethink. Our reaction thus gets converted into response. In addition to this you can also read my another post on reactions and response which I wrote in 2015.

http://www.mindfulheartconsultancy.com/blog/what-is-there-reactions-or-responses

Many other things can be written but then the letter will become very heavy. But before I close I like to conclude; In a nut shell, we need to become mindful heart parents.

Best wishes to you for parenting. Be in touch.

This video makes me speechless.