The Conscious Parent

we are teaching them to be attached to perfection. As a consequence,
when our children are catapulted into imperfection, chaos, or not
knowing, they flounder. Viewing their errors as reflective of who they
are, they become paralyzed in the aftermath. If we then reprimand or
punish them, we not only miss an opportunity to show how a mistake can
be the gateway to higher consciousness, but we also set them up to
become angry, even violent.
Before we can help our children uncover what led to the mistake, they
need to be allowed to put a little distance between themselves and their
mistakes. The conscious approach is to wait until all emotional reactivity
has died down and everyone is in their right mind, then sit with our
children compassionately, process their mistake with them entirely free
of judgment, and show them how they can extract a lesson for the future.
To help our children understand the why is the most effective way we
can teach forgiveness, because knowing the why empowers us to make
changes. Unfortunately, when addressing our children’s negative
behavior, we often don’t take the time or exercise the patience required
to get at the why, but instead deal with the what. Yet only through an
understanding of the why can we help our children create the pathway to
change. Once our children understand the why, everything else is gravy.
Perhaps the cause of a mistake was shortsightedness or pressure they
experienced from their peers. Maybe it was a simple lack of information
or just poor judgment. We don’t have to belabor the point, but simply
note it and move on.
When we don’t take our children’s mistakes personally, we
communicate the vital lesson that there is really nothing to forgive