ABOUT CONSCIOUS PARENTING
As parents, today, we are quite free to raise our children as we please, perhaps for the first time in history, now that grand-parents, family, culture and traditions have faded from being directing sources and prominent guides. Parents are now in a unique situation as regards history. We are free, but we are also alone. Raising children has become an individual, rather than a community, endeavour, and many parents ask themselves how to proceed.
For many parenting issues, we have access to a huge amount of information and different approaches, and a large portion of information we have access to about child rearing is based on medical studies and psychology. Though both are important sources of information, they are still not always enough to satisfy some parents' quest for a holistic, all-encompassing way to raise their children. So what do we base our parenting decisions on?
Babies are very fragile, as history and science tell us. We owe the success of modern births to hygiene and medicine. And yet, on a psychological and social level, babies and children seem to be very resilient, able to cope with all sorts of environments and treatment, and come out quite functional in the end. But their environment, how they are handled, how they are related to, what foods they are fed, all affect their physical, psychological and social development. And there are many things that affect children in subtle, and in not so subtle ways, that have consequences only much later in life. If, in light of this, we are interested in what the ideal environment, care and foods are, to allow the child to develop to their healthiest, strongest potential, also long term, then it behooves us to take into consideration the whole picture of what a child is, and what their real needs are. From this perspective, it seems parents may need to take a conscious approach to parenting, and be willing to observe their children and ask themselves questions.
Here are some of the questions that I began my search with: What surroundings best serve the child's physical, social and mental development? How can we best support their growth and development in each stage and at each level of consciousness, and give them the most potential for becoming healthy, capable, intelligent, creative, independently thinking, socially responsible and responsive human beings? How can we apply these things to everyday life and care of the baby and child?
In this little guide, I have gathered information from research I did, to share with parents asking themselves the same or similar questions, focusing in particular on the practical aspect of parenting. I have sketched suggestions and thoughts to some issues that seem important, given as considerations for parents to guide themselves through parenthood - that is, for you to make your own conscious choices. This is a sketch, a first draft, of looking at many of these questions, and those that are interested may persue their research. (See Recommended reading link, bottom.)
I am well aware that some of these suggestions may not be for everyone to take up - some are quite contrary to what seems normally done in our society. In taking up some of these ideas, one will be swimming upstream of social trends. But social trends are not created with children's wellbeing in mind...
The thoughts behind much of what is here are mostly based on principles and insights given by Rudolf Steiner, who gave the education principles and curriculum of the Waldorf or Steiner School movement. I have added a list of Steiner's books on education in the recommended reading list. The material quoted and referred to on this website is either from authors that work with Steiner's principles, or it is material from books, articles, studies and research I found to support and articulate various aspects of an issue, or to emphasize its importance. I have added some health suggestions that are quite easy to find elsewhere but that I found noteworthy.
See Why the site and Recommended reading, links
ARTICLE
Baldwin Dancy, Rahima - About conscious parenting in our modern age.htm
Mother and baby by Mary Cassat
conscious parenting guide www.consciousparentingguide.com 2009