Mindful Parenting of Children (up to 10 years)

Alfie Kohn writes “Well-behaved children do what their parents want them to do, and become what their parents want them to become, but often at the price of losing a sense of themselves”. So, what is the difference between Mindless Obedience and Mindful Co-operation, and which one do you want to teach your child?

Our sense of self is vital for emotional health and well-being, it means we know who we are, we trust our intuition, our sense of right and wrong and it allows us to try new things without fear of failure, to make friends who accept us for who we are and to be comfortable in our bodies and our minds.

Raising children who develop mindful co-operation isn’t an easy task, it requires us to role model it as a parent – not perfectly or properly but with compassion to ourselves when we fail and a conscious choice to do better next time. It means that we need to practice being present with all emotions and all behaviors and choose how we respond, even when we are triggered by our children’s lack of co-operation as they learn and struggle and grow and have big feelings of their own.