To shift to a more effective way of relating to our children, we must be willing to face and resolve issues in ourselves that stem from the way we were parented.

If we free ourselves from our ego and simply observe our children’s development as life spontaneously teases it out of them, they become our teachers. In other words, living authentically allows us to cease looking at our children as blank canvasses on which we can project our image of who they should be, seeing them instead as fellow travelers on

Often it’s the adjustment of our expectations, rather than reality itself, that’s the hurdle we have to leap.

It’s helpful to ask ourselves, “What is my parenting mission, my parenting philosophy? How do I manifest this in my everyday interaction with my child? Have I mapped out a thoughtful, mindful mission, as I would were I running a major organization?”

Once we have detached from our expectations of how another person “should” behave and we encounter them as they really are, the acceptance we inevitably demonstrate toward them naturally induces connection. This is because authenticity automatically resonates with authenticity.

For this reason, the parenting experience isn’t one of parent versus child but of parent with child.

conscious parenting goes beyond techniques aimed at fixing a specific behavior, speaking instead to the deeper aspects of the relationship between parent and child.

“Ego” as I’m using the term is an artificial sense of ourselves. It’s an idea we have about ourselves based mostly on other people’s opinions. It’s the person we have come to believe we are and think of ourselves as. This self-image is layered over who we truly are in our essence. Once our self-image has formed in childhood, we tend to hold onto it

As much as conscious parenting is about listening to our children, honoring their essence, and being fully present with them, it’s also about boundaries and discipline.