Happy Parents—Happy Children: Practical Guide for Parents
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About this ebook
The best gift we can give to our children is to grow and learn how to go beyond our egos limits, opening our hearts and minds. This book was created to empower parents to change and awaken their inner loving parent so they can offer their children unconditional acceptance and loving guidance while setting limits gently and skillfully. The book is full of powerful exercises and helpful tips to raise healthy, emotionally intelligent and happy children. .
A concise, practical, wise, and modern guide for raising childrenfor busy, intelligent parents. A book written with a compassionate heart and a mind that digested and integrated the lifelong experiences of personal development and helping others. Reading the book, we go through a thoughtful, brief, and useful course in psychology and belief therapy. Liberating and revealing for parents, and beneficial for their children. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.
Wojciech Eichelberger, author of A Woman without Blame and Shame, Alchemy of the Alchemist, and many more.
Kristina Lukawska
Kristina Lukawska is a psychotherapist, educator and parenting coach. She has completed MBSR training led by Jon Kabat-Zinn and a training at Mindful Schools. She has been meditating regularly for almost 30 years. Kristina was inspired to write this book by the stories of many frustrated and confused parents as well as her own path as a mother. After many years of meditation and spiritual practice, she awakened her own loving and compassionate self. From this new perspective, letting go of old patterns of unskillful parenting behaviors became a matter of conscious choice. She wanted to empower parents and provide tools to find balance and cultivate mindful awareness while raising their children in the hyperactive culture of the 21 century.
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Happy Parents—Happy Children - Kristina Lukawska
Happy Parents –
Happy Children
Practical Guide for Parents
Kristina Lukawska
Translated by Jacek Majewski
23163.jpgCopyright © 2012 Kristina Lukawska
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,
and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.
ISBN: 978-1-4525-4808-1 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4525-4807-4 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012904046
Balboa Press rev. date: 2/29/2012
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
STEP ONE: AVOID REPEATING YOUR PARENTS’ MISTAKES
STEP TWO: LEARN TO ACCEPT EMOTIONS
STEP THREE: TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF
STEP FOUR: HELP YOUR CHILDREN DEVELOP THEIR NATURAL POTENTIAL
STEP FIVE: SET LIMITS WITH LOVE
STEP SIX: BUILDING A HAPPY FAMILY
IN CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Acknowledgments
First and foremost I am grateful to my children, Kaya and Maxim, who have been my great teachers on conscious and mindful parenting. I am blessed by their being and their love.
I would like to express my thanks and gratitude to Jacek Majewski for his careful and eloquent work translating this book from Polish into English.
My deepest appreciation goes to my daughter Kaya, for her insightful suggestions and invaluable work in editing this book.
My special gratitude goes to my husband Andre for his bountiful love and encouragement. His support and belief in me is ever-present, and amazing.
This book could not have been written without the thousands of clients who have attended my workshops and individual sessions, and so generously shared their love, pain and lives with me.
Step One: AVOID REPEATING YOUR PARENTS’ MISTAKES
Why do you make the same mistakes your parents made?
I will never forget a situation that took place when my daughter was eight or nine. It was summer and I took my children to the lake. I parked the car in the parking lot next to the beach. I proceeded to take things out of the car, while my daughter Kaya shuffled her feet, eager to get into the water. When I was finally ready to head towards the lake, I let Kaya run ahead. Excited, she hopped around the car, straight onto a bicycle path. I heard her shout and saw her crash into a fast moving man on roller-skates, and then I saw both of them fall to the ground. I was terrified. Moving quickly toward her, I started yelling, Can’t you see this is a bicycle path?! You never look where you’re going!
Trembling with fear and agitation, I offered Kaya my hand to help her get up. She pushed it away, wiped tears from her eyes, looked at me and said, So instead of asking me if I got hurt or if I’m okay, you are standing over me yelling?!
Then she brushed her skirt clean and again headed toward the lake. I stood there, dumbfounded and embarrassed, but also full of admiration for my child, who had turned out to be more mature than me, her mother. I promised myself then that never again would I permit such a situation to happen.
I realized then, that I reacted in exactly the same way my mother used to react in similar situations. When something happened – I tripped or fell– she would panic and yell, and shake or hit me. I now know that she did that because she was worried or concerned about me. Later I would unwittingly repeat her actions, doing exactly what I had hated most about her responses. Thanks to that situation, I also realized that under the influence of strong emotions such as anxiety, anger, fear or shame, I behaved against my better judgment, doing or saying things I later regretted.
We often do things automatically,
repeating behaviors that we learned a long time ago,
under completely different
circumstances.
We unwittingly treat our children in the same way
we used to be treated by our parents and guardians.
Review your beliefs
Our beliefs,
instilled in us during childhood
by parents and teachers,
are unconscious patterns,
which influence all our decisions.
These patterns are beliefs that our parents have created or passed on from earlier generations. The view that was prominent in my own home – that in order to become independent, a woman first had to complete university studies – had been created by my grandmother, the first woman in the family, who had taken them up. However, such beliefs refer to all spheres of life. Most of them can be found in many families or even societies, for example, the idea that hospitality requires you feed your guest. Other ones are typical only for certain families.
In one family we find the view that a girl should wait for the boy to initiate a date. In another, there is the view that a woman has the same right to propose a date as a man has. Similarly, in one family one may hear that a woman should complete her studies and be independent, while in another one hears she has no chance of becoming independent at all. Some parents try to persuade their children that they can achieve something in life only through hard work, while others raise them with the conviction that passion is what counts most. Still others repeat that it is not worth making an effort since no one is going to appreciate it anyway.
Reflect on the beliefs about a traditional family model that were present in your home. What are your current beliefs in that matter?
In order to become more aware of your beliefs, you can complete the following sentences. This will help you recognize the differences between your mother and father’s thinking, as well as to consider what is most important for you in these roles:
My mother thought that a