Unconditional Love and Acceptance
Positive and conscious parenting is actually a very, very simple parenting style.
If we boil parenting down to the essential core, there is really only one goal:
- Meeting your child’s basic needs!
Nothing more, nothing less!
In some respects this parenting style is to children what coaching is to adults:
- Finding out what the need is and then creating a supportive environment to help the child or adult meet it.
So, What Is It Your Child Needs?
Well, at the most basic existential level, all you kid wants is your unconditional love and unconditional acceptance … also when your child is ‘being naughty’!
Okay, you may ask, does this mean that I should just accept bad behavior?
No, it doesn’t!
What it means is that you need to accept your child – which means separating your child from his or her behavior.
Yes, I know it may sound cryptic. But let’s make a little experiment:
I want you to imagine that you have two pairs of sunglasses in different shades that make you see the world in different colors when you put them on.
- Okay, first put on the shades that have been colored by the ‘old fashioned parenting’ spirit.
You will now see your child throwing things around, yelling and refusing to listen to you.
These sunshades will make you think that your child is misbehaving and being naughty and disobedient.
With these shades on you will probably yell back, perhaps even spank your child to make him or her stop. Perhaps you’ll hold back your affection for a while and send your child to his or her room as a way to punish your child.
- Okay, now let’s try to put on some positive parenting sunglasses – let’s look at our child with an unconditional positive regard:
You will now see your child – not as misbehaving – but as frustrated or sad because your child needs something or is in lack of something.
Notice the difference between the different parenting perspectives? Misbehavior (which is basically a judgment) vs. tuning in to feel that your child is angry or sad?
Perhaps your child needs to be seen, heard, understood or respected or perhaps he or she just wants to feel unconditionally loved and accepted.
With these shades on, you will now try out different need-meeting strategies:
E.g. being calmly present waiting for an opening to hug your child, gently talking to your kid to see if you can find out what the need is, showing respect by looking deeply into your kid’s eyes while explaining why you said ‘no’ to something etc.
Do you see why the label, “naughty kid”, doesn’t really make sense when you wear these shades?
A “naughty child” is probably just a child in need of something.
Therefore when your child is ‘misbehaving’, your child will need more love, need more attention, not less love or less attention.
Providing unconditional love no matter what the circumstances are the central core of unconditional parenting.
