Have you ever had that moment when your child is being particularly frustrating? You are over worked and over tired so your respond without thinking and probably not in the way you wanted to handle the situation. Well you are not alone. Parents struggle with this exact issue on a day-to-day if not hour-to-hour basis. However there is a way for you to better yourself for these situations and minimize the outbursts. This is the beauty of mindfulness.
Mindful Parenting
This is not a new concept, yet mindful parenting is getting more and more popular in recently. The main reason is because how effective it is. Parents who practice mindfulness are enjoying parenting and have better behave children according to recent studies.
Mindfulness Starts with You
According to Dena Farash, founder of the Mindful Mom Revolution and a New Jersey mom of two, parents today are overscheduled, exhausted and distracted. Sounds familiar? If you are not taking care of yourself your internal stress and exhaustion will spill over to your external life. Your home life can become more strained and you could permanently be at your wits end. Taking time to take care of yourself is necessary to have a happy and healthy home. Taking care of yourself does not have to be a weekend getaway every month but something much simpler. If you can take 15 minutes a day to do what you want to do, read, exercise, or go for a walk, you are already doing excellent in the way of self-care.
Don’t React, Respond
Farash told Yahoo Lifestyle the importance of responding to children instead of reacting. As I mentioned earliar, parents today are overworked and overstressed. When that stress gets big enough it spills over to all areas of your life and even into how you react to your children. Instead of listening and responding to your kids you can react too quickly, lashing out and yelling. Now everyone is upset.
“As parents, we should look for different ways to communicate. It’s time for moms and dads to get back to what really matters,” Farash says, “loving kindness toward themselves, toward their partners and toward their children.” She goes on to say what parents really need to aim for is “parenting from a place of understanding and mutual respect for their children, and most importantly, parenting from a place of fulfillment. We never show up for our kids the way we truly desire to if we choose not to show up in that way for ourselves.”
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