Raising children to feel at peace in themselves – Peaceful Parent Institute

What happened in your family growing up when you did something that annoyed someone?

I have reflected back on whether I knew, as a child, that mistakes are an important and necessary part of learning. Not at all sadly. Could I expect acceptance and support even when I made mistakes? I think the best I could hope for was to somehow get away with it. To hope for a bigger drama going down to take my parent’s attention!

Imagine how it might have felt if (or perhaps when) as a child you received messages such as these:

“It’s okay, it’s just a mistake, no biggie!” OR
“It’s okay I’ll help you fix it up” OR
“How frustrating to burn the food after putting so much work into it”
“I’m not happy that this got broken. It’s going to cost a lot to replace it, but I know it was an accident”
OR “I know that it was a moment of extreme frustration for you. What’s most important is that you know I’m here to help you learn to manage your frustrations in a healthy way”
OR  “I know I got really angry earlier when you threw and broke the ornament. I’m still really disappointed because it meant a lot to me. And I’m very concerned about what caused you to feel so upset as to do this.” –

Not that I, like many from my generation, would have ever, ever had the courage to express anger so openly!

What did you learn to expect as a child?

I can imagine some of you noting the strong contrast between such imaginary responses in comparison to what you grew to expect as a child. Yet it’s the message that they’re ok when they get it wrong, that empowers children to take on the weight of self-responsibility. Slowly but surely.

I had a little melt-my-heart moment, which led me to reflect on this whole topic.We all sat at the dinner table, my (then) seventeen year old son had made the whole meal. Yet he was looking very sad and disappointed. He apologised that the food was burnt on the bottom. His twelve year old sister quickly reassured him: “It’s okay, we all learn from our mistakes all the time. Thank you for making dinner, it looks yum!”

Yes, he was still disappointed and his sister had helped him restore his dignity. She cared more about his feelings than the burnt food. I believe that children develop their heart to share empathy and reassurance when they themselves gain repeated experiences in their young years of being supported. Experiences that preserve their dignity when faced with mistakes, disappointments and failures… life’s challenges.

Fostering kindness among siblings

Other than the fact that seeing our children being really sweet to each other generally melts one’s heart. This was a moment when I really reflected on how liberating it must be for a child to truly know that making mistakes is an unavoidable and necessary part of the process of learning and growth. Not a negative reflection of one’s self. And not just the little mistakes, but the really big ones that cause others to get very upset.

For many years, I had been immersed in self-healing and personal development work before becoming a parent. Both personally and professionally. I was very clear about aiming to not set my children into inner conflict with themselves, to own the emotional pain that came up for me and protect them from being the recipients of my projections. I had this strong sense of wanting to preserve my child’s beauty and innocence.

From the beginning of my parenting journey, I was determined not to turn my son against himself. I was acutely aware of how much work it takes to change those deeply ingrained unhealthy patterns of relating with self and others. I’ve really wanted to keep my heart open to my children no matter what happens, not necessarily in every minute of every day, but overall in each day of their lives. Sometimes this is really hard to do. I haven’t yet met a parent who doesn’t find this hard at least some of the time.

Sometimes as parents, we get triggered into painful thoughts and feelings and don’t feel very caring. Sometimes we do judge our child harshly and they know it. It takes all we’ve got to return back to a place where we can own our own pain and show them that we still care about their pain.

Most parents find it hard to be more kind than critical towards themselves when they struggle

It’s a big ask to expect ourselves to generously apply tolerance, patience and support to our children through their struggles. Especially if we carry an ingrained belief that we don’t deserve empathy and support when we let others down. It’s so important to develop the patience and kindness towards ourselves that we aim to give our children.

A commitment to non-punitive peaceful parenting, to bringing more empathy into your interactions in your family gifts your child with feeling more at peace in their minds and hearts more of the time. And to  more easily return to peace within themselves when they stuff up, when tensions, challenges and conflicts arise.

It was the realisation at age seventeen that I pretty much had no peace of mind. That it was a horrible, scary and confusing mess in my head and heart which started me on my path to finding peace. One day when pouring it all out into my journal it hit me that maybe, just maybe, it’s possible to not just aim to appear to be at peace. But to actually live with that feeling of being at peace within myself.

This idea filled me with excitement and gave me the inspiration to start looking inside and getting really real about all those messy feelings. It took a lot of courage to feel what felt too hard to feel and to share what felt too hard to share.

My eldest is eighteen at the time of writing (2015). Seeing how strong, proud and at peace he and his sister are makes the hard work of changing patterns so worthwhile.