Conscious Parenting

and how children help us redefine psychological resilience.

Pool playtime with Baby H. He is absolutely adorable 😍

After swimming, my 2 year old nephew Edric taught me a wonderful lesson in resilience when he was playing with car toys. Edric is a big car fan, and he asked me to help him fix his splayed out Transformers toy which couldn’t transform back into its car form. I tried in vain to fix his Transformers toy car but couldn’t restore it. I apologised, saying, “Its broken, I can’t put it back together again.”

Edric responded, “Then we can just put a rubber band on it.”

“There isn’t any rubber band around,” I said, fixated on trying for the nth time to mend the broken toy.

“Well, this car isn’t broken,” Edric said picking up a red car. “And this car isn’t broken,” he continued, picking up a yellow car. “And this one, and this one, they aren’t broken.” He started playing with his other cars, shifting his attention completely to the fleet of toy cars he had elsewhere.

I sat there, amazed and humbled by this 2 year old’s wisdom. Here I was, as an adult, spinning my wheels on a dead end problem, gripped by a rigid, scarcity-based mindset on problem solving. In contrast, my nephew moved on to quickly find another solution from an abundance mindset. How often, as adults, are we guilty of being mired by problems in life, and failing to see the glass as half full? How often do we practice gratitude?

Neuroplasticity in children is incredibly adaptive in the first 6 years of life. Nurturing a child’s resilience and validating their feelings with love and compassion when things do not go their way sets them up for success in their adult relationships. Conscious parenting leads to conscious relationships with the self and with others.

I find the best humans to practice unconditional love, compassion, empathy, kindness and mindfulness with are babies and children. For one, they are completely dependent, increasing the burden of care (emotionally, physically, and mentally) for their caregivers. Kids are also constantly testing boundaries (and our patience). But they can be our best teachers in life and love, when we embrace the art of parenting fully. It calls for total surrender and sacrifice: acts of true love.

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