"Parental Evolution As The Solution"

Conscious Parenting: Shefali Tsabary at TEDxSF (7 Billion Well)

In the world where you're parenting, things are hard.  Really hard.  How do you raise "good" children in a world that seems so...well, not good?

How do you teach children to love themselves, to love learning, and to love the world?

By being an intentional parent.  By starting inwardly and working out.

We as parents have the ability to influence our children in a way that no one else can, so we need to be intentional about the things we do as parents.  Our children learn so much from us and pattern much of what they think and do after what they've learned from us.

In Laurence Steinberg's book entitled "The 10 Basic Principles of Good Parenting" he states," You can't choose when or whether to be your child's role model.  Whether you like it or not, your child is always learning by watching you" (Steinberg, p. 19). 

So how do you ensure that your children learn what you want them to from you? How do you become an intentional parent?

By being an intentional human being.

By learning to love yourself, learning to love learning, and learning to love the world.

*Learning To Love Yourself*

A key aspect to learning to love yourself is to learn how Christ sees you and loves you.  Work on your relationship with Christ, and through His love, you can come to truly know and love yourself.  In President Uchtdorf's October 2010 General Conference address entitled "Of Thing That Matter Most", he says, "It may seem odd to think of having a relationship with ourselves, but we do. Some people can’t get along with themselves. They criticize and belittle themselves all day long until they begin to hate themselves. May I suggest that you reduce the rush and take a little extra time to get to know yourself better. Walk in nature, watch a sunrise, enjoy God’s creations, ponder the truths of the restored gospel, and find out what they mean for you personally. Learn to see yourself as Heavenly Father sees you—as His precious daughter or son with divine potential."

*Learning To Love Learning*

By fostering your own love of learning, it will become easier to teach your children to love learning.  Learning doesn't only entail secular knowledge, but it is also spiritual and emotional growth.  In this life we are to learn as much as we can; of course we need to have some priorities as to what we spend our time studying about, but coming to love learning will strengthen our testimonies as well as our families. In Dallin H. Oaks' April 2009 General Conference address entitled "Learning and Latter-Day Saints", he states, "The ultimate goal of an education is to make us better parents and servants in the kingdom. In the long run it is the growth, knowledge, and wisdom we achieve that enlarges our souls and prepares us for eternity, not the marks on college transcripts."  Education is preparation for eternity, and so are families.  Learning to love learning enables us to help our families to return to eternity with us.

*Learning To Love The World*

There are so many horrible things going on in the world today that its hard to try and love it.  However, if we learn to love it, we will care more for it and the people in it.  In the scriptures we learn, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).  A way that we can come to love the world is through coming to understand the atonement and how it affects our lives and the lives of those in the world.  Through this study, we can come to feel more compassion for our fellowmen and more joy in the good things of the world.  A true understanding of the atonement will soften our hearts and bring to mind what things we can do to serve and help others, and eventually come to love the world.

"Our children come to us whole, complete, and worthy.  They're happy with two sticks, a stone, and a feather.  But because we have been conditioned so deeply in an unconscious manner, so severed from our own sense of presence, wholeness, atunement, and sense of self and abundance, that we project a sense of lack onto them.  We teach them "do not depend on your sense of self for worth and value, but look outward; look to the Ferrari, to the corporate corner office, to the casino, to the pill, to the bottle, to the needle, to spouse number one, two, and three, to where you live, to where you graduated from because we are severed from a sense of being.  We are consumed by doing; this is how we know self value" (Conscious Parenting: Shefali Tsabary at TEDxSF).

"It's time for us to change the spotlight, to turn it inward, and change it from being the child who needs to be fixed, the child as the one with the problem, and parental evolution as the solution.  The extent to which we as parents know ourselves is the extent to which our children will.  The extent to which we as parents can love deeply, laugh loudly, risk bravely, and lose freely is the extent to which our children will know joy and freedom.  The extent to which we can run out into the rain without fear of getting wet is the extent to which our children will lead lives of courage.  The time to awaken is now.  The parenting paradigm needs to shift.  No more the parent needs to be the "greater than", but now we need to look at ourselves and our children as equal, if not greater, transforming agents.  Our children are our awakeners; they are our teachers.  It is time for us parents to answer the call to pause, to reflect more, to connect to our own abundance, to trust our children, to understand their brilliance, to follow their lead, to self-love, to create purpose, to enter worth, to be in gratitude.  For this is how our children will absorb wholeness and abundance, fullness and spirit, and from this place they can fly free.  It is time for us parents to answer our call to our own awakening.  The moment is now, and our children await" (Conscious Parenting: Shefali Tsabary at TEDxSF).