Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive: 10th Anniversary Edition

Children need to know that we have feelings too.

If there is a mismatch between the verbal and the nonverbal, it can be quite disorienting for a child trying to sort out the confusion and the incoherence of the communication.

Parents can listen to and understand their children’s experience rather than tell them that what they think and feel isn’t valid.

Continual intensity of a parent’s focus on his child could actually be experienced as quite intrusive by the child. Within parent-child relationships there are cycling needs for connection and separation. It is important for parents to be sensitive to times when the child needs solitude as well as joining. The attuned parent respects the natural os

it is important to attune to, or resonate with the emotional experience inside the child before changing the external behavior.

Without emotional understanding from a caring adult, a child can feel distress or even a sense of shame.

Children try to understand and make sense out of their experiences. Telling your children the story of an experience can help them integrate both the events and the emotional content of that experience.

making sense of your life is the best gift you can give your child, or yourself.