- [Narrator] The Parenting Junkie.
- Welcome back to the Parenting Junkie.
The place to go to love parenting
and for parenting from love.
Today I want to talk about parenting in the present moment.
And in fact, I have a wonderful book by that exact name.
Can you see it right here?
By Dr. Carla Naumburg.
Whom I so admire and I highly recommend this book.
This book is all about mindfulness.
Another important book about mindful parenting
is Parenting with Presence by Susan Stiffelman.
And the truth is there are many different books
on mindfulness and parenting that I really recommend.
You can find those on my Books I Recommend page
at theParentingJunkie.com.
But today when I talk about parenting in the present moment,
I mean something very specific for this video.
What I mean is, not so much the mindfulness concept
of being present ourselves,
but the concept of not time traveling
with our children in mind.
Okay, what do I mean?
What I mean is that often we parent our child
while we're actually treating them as if they are
some product that we are preparing for the future.
In other words, I'm sure you hear a lot about the term
readiness, right?
I have heard this a lot in the context of school.
In kindergarten, our children need to learn certain skills
so that they're ready for first grade.
And in first grade they have to learn certain skills
so that they are ready, eventually, for college.
We hear a lot about talking about this readiness
as if the entire childhood of the child
is to prepare them for some climatic point in the future
and for some reason, that is usually college.
So, I want to dissuade us from this idea.
And so many of the writers that I read
have written about this.
Too many to name.
But the basic premise goes as follows.
A six year old, or a two year old, or a one month old
is worthy and valuable, right now.
Their needs, and skills, abilities and communication.
Their personality, the whole child is worthy, right now.
And is enough, right now.
What I mean when I say worthy and enough?
Usually, we, as parents, function out of an interest
in our children's health and happiness.
What I want to ask us, today, is health and happiness when?
When do we care for them to be healthy and happy?
Because it seems to me that so often, we sacrifice
their current health and happiness at the alter
of their future health and happiness.
And this is the idea that I want to dismantle today.
I believe that it is vital for us to always consider
our children's current well-being.
Our children's current needs and their current health
and happiness.
Because I believe that they are worthy of this,
just as every one of us is worthy of this right now.
For some reason in our culture,
we have a very skewed relationship with time.
Look how children look so forward to their next birthday.
They are so excited to finally step up to the next age.
It's so important to them to be older.
And look how we adults shy away from our birthdays
and shrivel up as if it's some awful, shameful thing
that we are growing older.
Look how we treat the elderly in our societies,
and look how we treat children.
For some reason, it seems like everybody
is kind of angling in
and centering on the ages
18 to 25.
As if, if you're outside that bracket,
you don't have value and worth.
I think this message is very much reinforced by the media
and what we see in Hollywood.
Which is why I don't usually appreciate big-box movies
and magazines.
Well, that and a host of other reasons, too.
I think as parents, who are raising children
who are going to be many different ages
over the course of their lives,
we need to begin to focus on them,
where they are, right now.
What is also linked to this type of future thinking
is the idea of pushing children along
the stages of development.
Pushing babies to walk and talk earlier.
Sitting them up before they can.
Pushing a child to read before they're five.
All of these things are so counter-productive
to children's development, and not what they need.
Everybody evolves and develops at a different pace.
And unless there's some kind of big problem,
everybody gets there in the end.
So can we all just relax about when exactly it happens?
Imagine our parents, as adults, were evaluating us
and comparing us to all our peers, and saying
"Well, Johnny was making $300,000 a year by your age."
It's so ridiculous to measure ourselves
or measure our children according to some arbitrary,
random and standardized measure of success.
Of who they need to be and of what they should know
right now.
This future thinking of our child's future success,
and constantly focusing on where they need to get to
and making them jump through those hoops
and forcing them to go through certain things
in their childhoods, so that they can become
the adult that we want them to become.
Essentially robs them of their childhoods,
of the play and exploration that they need right now.
And it robs us of their childhoods, as well.
Because rather than enjoying them and meeting them
where they are right now, we're constantly in the
anxiety of will we produce the person
that we want to produce?
Now this doesn't mean that children don't need to learn
basic skill and that they don't need to go through
certain processes.
Of course they do.
I'm just talking about that obsession and that focus
at the expense of their current joy, authenticity
and health.
So, I guess my question to us today is
can't we let go of molding our child
into some improved future versions of themselves
and rather accept and meet them
where they are right now
and enjoy them for who they are today
in this moment.
See their needs, their skills, their character
and their whole person
as what it truly is
and love them for that
and not for something that we hope them
to one day become.
And, can we hold ourselves to that same measure?
Where we are meeting ourselves with kindness,
with self-love and with acceptance,
of who we are, right now.
Not harking back to our 16-year-old physique,
or to our 25-year-old energy levels,
or to our skin when we were 30?
But rather, who we are today.
Guys, if we are constantly dreaming
of a different timezone,
then we're missing our lives.
We're spending our entire lives wishing
we were in a different time and place.
The fact is, that all we have is the current,
present moment.
I don't want to be morbid or freak you out.
So please hear this with the empathy
and with the peace that it is intended.
But I personally think that we need to live
with a very acute sense of our own,
and the people who we love's, mortality.
Life ends abruptly all the time,
and anyone of us could die tomorrow.
So, isn't it worth living and enjoying
this moment with our children
rather than worrying so much
about what they are to become?
If you want to live in the moment with your children
and accept them with presence, right now,
then subscribe to my channel
and head on over to theParentingJunkie.com,
where I would love to hear your comments
on these concepts,
and you can sign up for email updates
so you never miss an episode.
Keep on loving parenting and parenting from love,
because your kids need you
almost as much as you need them.