Highlight!
I have never been a highlighter.
For a couple of reasons, one of them being that I am a private person (insert laugh here) and highlighting a book that someone may potentially borrow would make me feel exposed.
Another reason is, I find it distracting to read a book that's been marked.
Thanks to Carole (CK), I am reading a book called The Conscious Parent by Shafali Tsabary.
By the time I am done, I am positive that my children will thank her too.
It is not your typical parenting book, as it does not really tell you "How To."
It is a book that first attempts to make a parent a better person before one can expect to be a better parent.
I can't stop reading it, but yet at the same time it periodically makes me want to lie down.
It is giving me some insight and understanding about people, myself included.
It is making me look deep into myself in a raw and honest way.
Now I get why psychotherapy sessions are generally done just once a week.
One needs time to recover after unearthing long forgotten (but unhealed) wounds and experiences.
But uncovering why we react or parent the way we parent is very cathartic.
And the quicker we understand, the quicker we stop parenting reactively.
To parent reactively or as the writer calls it parenting unconsciously--is not good for our children.
Children that are parented unconsciously can end up pretty effed up (pardon the french) if not while they are young, then at some point in their life.
That's a pretty strong statement.
I know.
But trust me on this one. I know.
Tsabary writes that a conscious parent does not emerge overnight--while that may be true, I will tell you this:
Once you start being conscious, your relationship with your children shifts for the better.
Overnight.
I am far from being done with this book, but in the interest of helping anyone out there that may be struggling with a teenager or just looking for parenting answers, I highly recommend that you read this book.
Today.
It is a book that I believe if followed, together with prayer and faith can actually crack the personal code on parenting.
To Be Continued.
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