Growing Up Again: Parenting Ourselves, Parenting Our Children

to identify options;

Look at me! At another point is recognition, the hunger to be acknowledged and considered valuable.

Nurture helps us develop our uniqueness and helps us believe we deserve to become skillful. Nurture is about being. It does not need to be earned.

we refer to parenting that has been less than adequate as uneven, not as dysfunctional.

There is no magical, sudden way to borrow the needed skills and to reclaim our self-confidence and self-esteem. We must do it ourselves step-by-step; we must build from within.

Children who feel like orphans are often receptive to helpful structure long before they can accept nurture without being fearful.

improve your skills for taking care of yourself, evaluate the way you were parented, and discover ways to heal from the uneven parenting in your family of origin.

New rule: I am responsible for my own needs. I accept help from others and appreciate it. The universe does not revolve around me; I am part of it. I am important and other people are important.

Shame That Destroys Employing shame to control people, however, is a misuse of power. When Gandhi was asked how so few British could control the enormous numbers of Indian citizens, he replied, “They humiliate us to control us.” So it is with anyone who intentionally, or out of deep and unexamined old learning controls another by means of humiliati

When our first child arrives, we come face to face with the reality that parenting is much more than a loving dream. It is the daily demand of knowing what to do, when to do it, and how to do it, and then doing it.