Light Heart Parenting: Strengthen Relationships w/Your Child or Yourself Without Losing Your Mind!

In previous podcasts we've discussed recognizing, appreciating, and supporting your own strengths - your wonderful qualities, your natural abilities, your interests and preferences, and the ways you are intelligent. Now the question is, can you really enjoy your own strengths? When you think about your strengths how do you feel? Happy, sad, delighted, concerned, hopeful, discouraged, confident? If you have some negative feelings about your strengths, what might help you move toward positive feelings? Learning to enjoy your qualities, interests and preferences and acknowledging the ways in which you are intelligent can help you to grow in those qualities and move forward with more confidence and joy!

In this episode Edie and Mariaemma discuss how to support yourself in growing your strengths. People need opportunities to practice their strengths in a safe and nurturing environment with love and affection. People who have this experience of being able to name their strengths without the feeling of bragging or being conceited can know themselves fully and be able to articulate what is true about themselves. This is a practice that requires perseverance!

In this episode Edie and Mariaemma discuss the importance of involving family and friends in noticing and appreciating your strengths. Often, other people in your life see things about you that you don't recognize about yourself. Seeing your strengths through others' eyes can increase your confidence about the gifts you have to offer, as well as reinforcing to all involved the concept that we all have different, unique gifts to offer each other and to the world.

In this episode Edie and Mariaemma discuss what it means to pay attention with intention to your talents, skills, preferences, and non-preferences - separating expectations of how we think we "should" be from who we really are.

In this episode Edie and Mariaemma discuss how to genuinely appreciate your own strengths in ways that leave you feeling more positive and motivated. This includes speaking words of appreciation to yourself and releasing any tendency to compare yourself with others.

Welcome to this podcast series focused on parenting yourself, with the idea of growing personally by first honoring your own strengths. The importance of noticing - or re-discovering - your own gifts, focusing on them, and really appreciating and loving them cannot be overstated. It's so easy to overlook, or even devalue, our own gifts and talents while we take care of everyone else. In this episode we will explore negative messages you might have grown up with and how these can lead to controlling beliefs that set up roadblocks to your own growth or happiness. And we will introduce you to the steps we will discuss in upcoming podcasts to help you identify and honor your strengths. Using the acronym R.A.I.S.E. we will introduce you to the practice of these five declaration: I Recognize my strengths, I Appreciate my strengths, I Involve my family in noticing and appreciating my strengths, I Support myself in growing my strengths, I Enjoy my strengths.

In previous podcasts we've discussed recognizing, appreciating, and supporting our children's strengths - their wonderful qualities, their natural abilities, their interests and preferences, and the ways they are intelligent. Now the question is, can we really enjoy those strengths in our children? When you think about your children's strengths how do you feel? Happy, sad, delighted, concerned, hopeful, discouraged, confident? If you have some negative feelings about their strengths, what might help you move toward positive feelings? Learning to enjoy your children and their strengths, qualities, interests and preferences and acknowledging the ways in which they are intelligent can help them to grow in those qualities. This requires being fully present in the moment without the worry and concern about their future success. Their success will come when they feel excited and enthusiastic about who they are and what they can do.

Supporting children in growing their strengths requires encouragement without pressure, and a noticing of all that they do and are that makes them uniquely themselves. Children need opportunities to practice those qualities and strengths in a safe and nurturing environment with love and affection. Children need to have the experience of being able to name their strengths without the feeling of bragging or being conceited so they can know themselves fully and be able to articulate what is true about themselves, thus growing into confident adults who also respect others' strengths.

By allowing our children to notice and appreciate their own strengths we are helping to create the architecture in their brains that forms how they respond to themselves in times of challenges. Children do better when they feel better and they feel better when they feel seen and heard, participate in meaningful activities, and are unconditionally loved. That’s how they can move into adulthood as safe and secure adults.

In this episode Edie and Mariaemma discuss how to genuinely appreciate your children's strengths in ways that leave them feeling more positive and motivated. This includes speaking words of appreciation, refraining from using interests to punish or reward, and releasing any tendency to compare with other children.

In this episode Edie and Mariaemma discuss what it means to pay attention with intention to your children's talents, skills, preferences, and non-preferences - separating expectations of how we think they "should" be from who they really are.

Light Heart Parenting is all about moving from stress-filled to more light-hearted parenting experiences. Delighting in the unique individuals your children are by recognizing and supporting their strengths actually affects brain development, learning at all levels, and ability to form genuine relationships. We will discuss the importance of letting go of comparisons and expectations and really noticing each of YOUR children, as if they were little start-up companies - with their own sets of passions, talents, and uniqueness. The world needs everyone's unique strengths. Focusing on these creates safety for our children and elevates the parenting experience to include joy, laughter, and fun on a daily basis.