The Conscious Parent

Preoccupied with his lack of power over his stepson, Christopher
entered into conflict with Jaden on a daily basis, pushing him into
corners that gave this teen no option but to retaliate. He also fought
constantly with his new wife over Jaden, pushing her to take sides and
threatening to leave her if she couldn’t change her son.
Things became so bad that Jaden barely felt comfortable leaving his
room when he was alone in the house with Christopher, often waiting to
do so until his mother returned. In his desperation to numb his pain and
anger, he began hanging out with the wrong crowd and consequently
started to fail in school.
Christopher was insecure in his new roles as husband and stepfather.
Instead of becoming aware of his own inner conflict, he regarded Jaden
as the cause of his distress. He couldn’t recognize that, although we are
each unique individuals with our own separate paths to walk in our own
special way, there’s no fundamental separation between “I” and “you,”
for we are all together on this journey. Had Christopher understood this,
he would have seen how he was using Jaden as a cover for his own pain.
He would have realized that by attacking Jaden, he was attempting to
obliterate his own feelings of inadequacy. He would also have
understood Jaden’s lack of respect for him as a mirror of his own lack of
respect for himself. No amount of control could change this.
As the egoic pattern of needing to be in control is passed from
generation to generation, the children of these parents often grow up
trying to be perfect in everything, to the point of being obsessively
detail-oriented. Unable to express their emotions, they tend to store them
in their body, becoming rigid. Because of their acute rigidity, which