parentline

♪ intro music ♪ today we're gonna talk about parenting. i get a lot of questions across my email accounts from parents that are asking 'how can i parent my children ' 'in alignment with that spirituality ' 'and in alignment with source energy?' because of this, i wanna tell all you parents out there: let yourselves off the hook because it is not possible for you to parent perfectly.

and if somebody tells you that parenting is easy - they're lying to themselves â«laughsâ» and, you will all get the children that you need ... we make a mistake as parents, many of them, we see them as innocent and unseasoned - we do not see them as the eternal creators that they are. just because you came in to this life before they did

does not mean that they are any different than you are. you come here to help this 3rd dimensional reality add to your own expansion. (which is the same thing that they are doing) we identify ourselves as their venue of abundance, as their venue through which everything flows to them. and we make them believe (if not believing it ourselves) - that their actions and their behavior is responsible for our happiness.

we also see them as 'ours' instead of children of the universe. these four things which i've just mentioned are the biggest mistakes we make as parents. we replace the role of the universe, the role which the universe was meant to fill, with ourselves, and ... ... we treat ourselves in children's lives as if we are gods. we're not meant to be the gods of their lives -

we are meant to be their guides. your children are powerful creators just like you , who have come to and out of life, over and over again. they came here to learn from life. the learning from the parenthood & child role is just meant to be one component of ... the whole she-bang. it's not really your job to teach them, or to clothe them,

or to house them, or to feed them. doing that kind of thing for your children makes you feel good (which is your indication that that is in alignment) but that is not your job in being here are their parents. there's this absolutely fabulous quote that goes like this: 'example is not one way to teach - it is the only way to teach' only from our place of alignment

are we capable of teaching things which are of benefit to our children instead of a detriment to them. >from our misalignment, we teach them how to live their life out of alignment with their joy, their freedom, and their own true selves. the one who is in alignment

with their own guidance system, with their own joy, with their own freedom, and with their own true self, is the one who will teach the child to do the same. and thus the child will make decisions in their lives based on alignment, instead of based on some other idea which we have been... positing in the place of our own alignment.

this is the difference between the child who goes to get into the car at age 16, with other children who are drunk at the time, and the one who, trusting their own internal guidance system, doesn't get in the car and thus, doesn't end up dead. if you teach your child to stay in alignment and you teach them to find freedom instead of rebellion, your child will make decisions based on what's right for him or herself -

which is *the* most important thing that you can do for your children. do not expect your children's behavior to be the basis of your happiness (or lack thereof). this sets them up, to believe in their adulthood, that happiness is dependent on other people. it also sets them up to believe that he or she is responsible for the happiness of others.

that, right there, is the perfect ingredient for a chronically unhappy adult - which, let's face it, all we really want for our children is that they grow up to live happy lives. those people who base their parenting off of a system of punishment and reward are really the problem which is creating the society we have today

which is a punishment-based system. we train our children (and future adults) out of alignment and into resistance and rebellion, and ... you cannot, ever, punish something into wellness. you cannot punish anything into a place of alignment. you cannot punish something into goodness. those are vibrational contradictions. it is impossible to punish something into the behavior which is going

to benefit them the most in the end. all that that does, is to teach a person to lose connection with their own internal guidance systems. so, how do we parent well? i'm gonna give you a list of do's and don'ts. the single most important don't when it comes to parenthood is: do not strip your child of their self-concept. so, how do we strip our child of their self-concept? #1: we find fault and we criticize our children.

#2: do not do everything for them. let them make their own choices. we can't think for them and hope to raise adults which are functioning and creating a healthy society. do not mistake consequences with punishment, and replacing consequences with lecturing and threats. to understand what i mean between the difference - between consequences and punishment -

i'll give you a scenario: let's say the 3-year old is running around with a truck. and now, the 3-year old runs that truck into the family pet (like a cat or a dog) the parent who understands delivering consequences vs. punishment would say something like (utilizing empathy) "oh, how sad - looks like the truck is gone ..." then they would go down and immediately pick the truck up and put it out of the child's reach.

they would not follow that up with any kind of lecturing. they would allow the child to learn from the consequence of their action. the parent who is utilizing punishment instead of the consequence would get super, super, angry at the child. they may or may not take away the truck, but what they're going to do is put the child in a time-out. they're going to make it all about the parent against the child versus the child learning from the consequence

of running that truck into the family pet. don't rescue them from their problems. doing that strips them of their freedom - strips them of their ability to learn from things. we have a unique opportunity when it comes to problems and that is to help children to solve things themselves. that builds an incredible self-concept for your children. very loving parents come in, and sort of ...

solve everybody's problems for them. they solve the children's problems for the child. and the child grows up and ends up resenting the parent and being incapable of solving their own problems later in life. we can help children solve their problems but we do not solve them for them. don't deliver consequences with anger. if you deliver consequences with anger,

all this does is turn the fight into the parent against the child instead of the child learning from the consequences of their actions. children come into this life and they learn first off from the very beginning cause & effect. it's a benefit for them to understand this in the 3rd dimension. and it is not of benefit for them to be stripped of that opportunity of understanding.

don't assume that your baby is too young to understand. they are learning from the very, very, beginning. and quite often, we look at little babies who are about 6-months old and think: 'oh, they're too young to understand this, ' 'it's not time to set limits for them.' and that, right there, is a big mistake because you're laying the foundation, before they even hit toddler-hood,

of what they can expect out of adults, what they can get away with, and how safe they are. i want to interject here and talk to you a bit about ferberizing. many of you who understand the parental system of ferberizing will know that it's this concept, basically, that babies, from the very beginning, learn that they can manipulate, we're talking ... we're not talking ...

6 or, you know, 2-years old, 3-years old, 4-years old ... we're talking babies that come into this world and from the very beginning, learn that if they cry and you come, then they can manipulate you. the ferberizing concept, as far as source perspective is concerned, is the most damaging thing which has been created in terms of parenting.

before the age of about ... 1 ... children only cry because of one thing: they have a need. and if you do not meet that need (whether it's to be coddled, whether it's to be fed, whether it's to be changed) you are literally undercutting the trust-system between you and your child. ferberizing your child is the worst thing you can do for a child's trust, on this planet.

as a parent, it will become easier and easier for you to see the difference between a child crying out of need (which it can't meet itself) and a child which is crying out of manipulation - it's a totally different energy, and you need to trust yourselves enough to know that difference - as a parent, you *know* the difference. we're incredibly under-developed when we come into this world. the nature of being a human being

makes it so that infants can't even fit through the birth canal if they come out totally developed like we do ... like most animals do. that's why when we come out we're three months under-developed. so we literally are incapable of meeting our own needs until we're about 3-months old, and, even then, as you know if you've raised a child, there's a whole lot more needs which they can't meet themselves.

don't become a door-mat or a dictator to your child. what you wanna do is become a guide. the person who rescues their child from everything and the person who orders them to conform both, strip the child of their self-concept and both make their children feel powerless. and, as you know, i taught quite a bit about the fact that powerlessness is the no.1 problem to our society today. it is the reason for all of our

inter-personal, personal, and world conflicts which we have going on today. and then we come to what i think is the last point and one of the best points of don'ts when it comes to your children: don't feed them un-useful beliefs. one of the most amazing gifts of having a child is the fact that you have to examine your own limiting and beneficial beliefs.

you can't teach a child to believe something that *you* don't believe. but, if you want your child to believe that they can do something, you cannot tell them that they can't. if you keep reinforcing 'you can't do this', 'you can't do that' you are setting up the belief system in them - 'i can't'. we're laying the foundations for the belief of our children, into their adulthood,

and so, you should only be giving them beliefs which are useful. and, here's the crux - for you to give them a belief which is useful, you have to give them a belief which you firmly believe. you can't tell them one belief and then demonstrate an entirely other thing. like - 'you create your own abundance' meanwhile your mother and father (us) are going to demonstrate what it looks like to think that 'money doesn't grow on trees.'.

you have a gift here, with your children. when you're spouting out of your mouth un-useful beliefs, you get to examine them. and when you examine them and discover that they're un-useful you get to re-do them and change them. belief and desire must line-up in the exact vibration for manifestation to occur. so, it's not enough to culture desires in children

but not culture beliefs. you have to culture desires and then help them believe in line with those desires, in order to help them become the manifestors of their own life. since i like ending on happy-notes, here's my list of do's ... the most important thing you can do for your child is to build a healthy, strong, self-concept, to help them build that concept.

no.1: let them think. so often, when kids get themselves into situations, we tell them what they should think instead of let them think for themselves. so, let's pretend that your son or your daughter wants to go to school in slippers. you may just say "that's a bad idea, go put your other shoes on". that's stripping them of the ability to think through it. so you could play a game more like: "well, do you think "

"your slippers are going to work at recess time?" and let them think about it. if they say "yes, slippers are going to work at recess time." then you've gotta allow yourself to let go of it and let them go experience why slippers don't work at recess time. but, more likely, your child's gonna sit there for a minute and decide to change their shoes because

you've let them think about the outcome of the choice to wear slippers to school. take every opportunity you can to help them think for themselves - that is going to set them up for a successful adulthood. #2: let them learn from their choices - both the good ones and the bad ones. there are no bad choices, there are no failures,

because successful people turn their bad choices and their failures into wisdom. so we cannot make an enemy of bad choices. #3: let them solve their own problems. we can help them do that by giving suggestions, but we need to leave it in their camp - so as to empower them, to let them understand that they have the power to solve their own conflicts.

this will help them build an incredibly strong self-concept. this will help them to understand their own power and to help them feel free. #4: offer them empathy and understanding instead of lecturing and i-told-you-so's. children are meant to learn from the consequences of their own actions - not from your lecturing. it is natural to rebel against something which is pushing negative energy towards you.

so, when they have bad choices, when they make bad decisions, when they have what you would see as a 'failure' (traditionally), if you offer them empathy and understanding for that decision they make, suddenly you're an ally ... you're an ally and the enemy is the bad choice, instead of you. #5: let them make choices. this is incredibly important for your toddlers.

because, they already don't feel like they have a lot of freedom and they want it. they're in that stage, basically, (same with teenagers) they're in that stage where it's all about trying to foster their own independence it's all about their selves vs. you cause it's the first time they can really conceptualize of themselves as a single unit.

so if you allow them to make choices within the parameters of what you, yourself, think is acceptable, it will help them feel freedom. for example: you may have to leave the park, at some moment during the day, (if you've gone to the park) you have this very valuable opportunity. you could look at your child and say: "do you want to leave now or do you want to leave in 2 minutes?"

the child, of course, will pick 2 minutes. what you've just done is give them freedom within the parameters of something that you can live with (so you're going to live as a happy parent and it's going to be a limit which is safe for them). allow them to make a ton of mistakes. this is incredibly important because, like i said - we only ever really learn

by actually experiencing things ourselves. it's not enough to just take your word for it. and when you let them make a ton of mistakes when they're little, the price tag is super, super, small compared to making a lot of mistakes in their teenage-hood. when they're small, making a mistake like running their tricycle into something means a skinned-knee. when they're older,

learning from the consequences of their action and making mistakes (if they haven't been allowed to do so before) means: getting in their car when they're 16 and crashing into the side of the highway and potentially ending-up dead. it's difficult to watch as a parent, i understand that, when you're watching a child and you know that they're about to go get hurt

- not destroyed - obviously you should save your children from situations if it looks like their life is on the line but, when it doesn't look like that - it's difficult to sit back and let them make the mistake even if it means a skinned-knee, but that, right there, is what separates your child from you know, right now, in their successful adulthood, from children who grow up to be adults who make tons and tons of mistakes with huge price tags later.

#7: use only enforceable statements. what i mean by an enforceable statement is: you have no control over your child's actions. it's true, when they're younger, you can pick them up and control where they are physically within the world, but, ultimately, you have no control over another person. the only thing you have control over is you. and so, let's say that a child says: "i don't wanna brush my teeth! i don't wanna brush my teeth!"

looking at them and saying "brush your teeth." is not going to work. that is something which is completely out of your control. but you can control yourself - meaning you can tell the child: "well that's so sad, because mommy (or daddy) only reads books " "to babies who brush their teeth ..." then, you've put the decision, and the ball, back in their court. and, you've used an enforceable statement which you can then follow-through on,

which has nothing to do with 'controlling' their behavior. you will have an incredibly irresponsible and very rebellious child if you use un-enforceable statements, because, they'll learn pretty quickly 'i don't actually *have* to do anything that you say, ' 'because you can't *actually* control me!' so, you want to make them aware of the fact that while you don't control them,

you do control you. develop strategies to keep calm and to stay in alignmnet so you aren't, basically, breaking a sweat when you're parenting and flooding them with anger and negative emotion. the reason is this - children who watch their parents really, really struggle at parenthood and struggle at life

develop this understanding which looks like this: 'if the most powerful people in my life can't control me, ' 'that must mean i'm pretty bad.' when you make it obvious that it's very difficult to parent your child, they're coming up with a terrible self-concept. the self-concept is: 'i am bad - there is something wrong with me.' they personalize it

and they take it as if it's their fault. so, whatever it takes for you to develop strategies to decrease your stress relative to parenthood, to prepare yourself for things in the future so you don't get blindsided, and the more fun and free & easy you can make this, the better chance you have of your child developing this idea: 'the most powerful people in my life ' 'really love me and think that i'm a good kid. '

'and, it's easy for them to parent me - ' 'therefore, i must be pretty good.' #9: spend way, way, more time enjoying your children and having fun with them and understanding them and having these experiences with them than you ever do delivering consequences. this will help them gravitate towards positivity instead of gravitating away from negativity

(those two things are not the same). it will also help them in their lives so as to ensure that they're not trying to get any attention for negativity just because it's attention. #11: set limits. this may sound odd for somebody in my position who is saying that there are no limits to say that it's important to set limits for your children.

the reason is, is that we're bringing them into a society which *believes* in limits. and so, raising children which are always outside the limits, sets them up for failure within society in general. it is possible for you to explain that there are no limits while also setting them up to succeed within a society of limits. and, that's super-important so that they don't push the limit and end-up in jail. teach your children that they create their own abundance

and their own lives, not that *you* create their abundance and lives. this is difficult because you are, for lack of a better word, the vortex through which your children flow. and in the beginning you are the vortex through which all things flow to your child. things like clothing, things like shelter,

things like teaching. but for them to believe that you are the vortex through which everything comes for them is a mis-understanding, and it definitely hurts them in the end. when you're a parent who really can't provide something for your child because of lack of money or whatever it is, to look at your child and say:

'i can't do that, you can't do that ...' is detrimental. what it can be replaced with is something like: 'mommy does not have a good enough vibration, ' 'relative to money, to have enough to get that right now - ' 'but i am not the only way to get that item.' (that they're wanting so much) so you can explain to them how to create with their own mind. you can explain that the whole universe

is their venue of abundance, and that if it doesn't come through you, if they focus enough, it'll come through something or someone else, or some other opportunity. that they don't have to look at you as if you are this big 'limit' to them. (in terms of what you can and can't do for them) teach them how to stay in alignment with themselves

which, trust me - at the end of the day - that's all there is. because by the time they're 16-years old, you have absolutely no control. before that, let's go 12 and 13. by 12 and 13-years old, you have no control over your children, whatsoever. so it's super important that before then, you bring them into awareness of their own guidance system

because you can't be there whispering in their ear being the angel-on-their-shoulder, telling them which way to go in their life. they have to be able to trust their own internal guidance system to get them through this life, cause you simply can't be there all the time. #15: lead by example. it is the only way to teach your children. for example, if you want your child to enjoy chores,

you'd better act like you enjoy chores, and find a way to enjoy it. you can give them examples of solving problems. you can give them an example of behavior towards others. most importantly, you want to give your child an example of what it looks like to stay in alignment with who you are, to stay in alignment with joy, to stay in alignment with what you think is right & wrong.

you have to demonstrate what it looks like to stay in your own alignment if you want your children to do the same. that is the most beneficial thing you can do for them. if you're constantly demonstrating that it's appropriate to ... choose someone else's happiness over your own happiness, you will raise a child who does the same. so figure out what it is you want to teach them in terms of alignment,

figure out what it is you want for them to be doing or not doing, what beliefs you want them to hold and not-hold, and *become* the manifestation of it. parenting is one of the biggest opportunities for expansion in this universe. you really don't understand love until you have a child. many of you who have children know exactly what i mean. so,

don't expect perfection. it's not what your children want anyways. none of your children coming down into this reality said 'parent of mine - i expect you to be in exact place of ' 'perfection before i came down.' no - they knew exactly what they were getting into. they came down here so as to utilize this relationship between you and them to aid in their own expansion.

so don't fall into guilt. the axis of your power is always in the now, so it's never too late to switch up your game. regardless of having made a mistake 5-years ago or 5-minutes ago, you can always choose to parent, in alignment with the parent you want to be, right now. they will be learning regardless of

whether you parent well or parent terribly. because, either way, their expansion is being caused by the relationship. so the question is: â«laughsâ» "what do you want your ... " "their concepts and their beliefs " "about themselves and about the world " "to become?" you had better become an example of *exactly* that.

for this reason, children are your greatest excuse to use as a means to become 'more'. how valuable is it to have created in your life, an excuse, for you to have to stay in alignment with who you really are? to have to stay in alignment with your own internal guidance system? it's fabulous!

our children are our greatest teachers because they are the excuse which forces us to become the manifestation of that which we really want to be. so, all of that being said, i could sum this up very quickly and tell you that the best thing that you can do for your children, - period. the end. -

or anybody - is to believe in them, and to trust them with themselves. nothing erodes the self-concept like saying: 'i know better for you what is right for you, than you do.' when you look in your child's face and you say 'i believe in you', 'i believe that you can do anything', 'i trust for you to know what's right for you', 'i trust for you to know what's right versus wrong - for you',

'i trust you to go in the direction of what's right ' 'all the time for you, and i trust you what that is' - you are giving your child an incredibly invaluable thing, which is - you're handing them this self-concept and freedom to create their lives and to create themselves in line with their own true self, with their own concept with that which who they were intended to be before they came here.

you are letting them do exactly what they intended (from source perspective) to do, down here on this planet. so, the most important thing you can do is trust your children with themselves, and to teach them how to do the same. and when you start doing this,

you will literally see them bloom right in front of your eyes.

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