The Conscious Parent

Our adult ability to tolerate frustration takes root in our childhood.
More precisely, it involves our parents’ ability to teach us how to handle
the word “no” and cope with our residual emotion. Most parents say the
word “no” but don’t help their children process the emotions around this.
The reason we shy away from helping our children explore their
disappointment is that we haven’t first addressed our own
disappointment with life. We either deny our children’s feelings or,
equally ineffective, seek to assuage them quickly by “fixing” whatever
may be wrong or distracting them in some way. This is how our children
learn to run away from discomfort, which in the teen years and later life
can result in extreme self-medication.
Unless our children learn early how to negotiate their emotions,
especially in the context of being told “no,” they will be unable to handle
any sort of dismissal later in life. They will react like a twoyear-old,
pitching a fit—or, in a more grownup style, binge-drinking or doing
drugs. Few of us realize how much of our behavior is selfsabotaging. At
the root of it all is our inability to soothe ourselves and tolerate our life
as it is.
A child’s need for solace and empowerment must always be kept in
mind. After any form of behavior modification, it’s imperative we
engage our child through storytelling, hugging, or dialogue, depending
on their needs and age. Behavioral modification is never at the expense
of the relationship.
Our children’s behavior doesn’t play out in a vacuum but is related to
how well we are able to inhabit our authority—the authority not of ego,
but of authentic presence. When we stay stuck at the content level and