About conscious parenting

WELCOME ABOUT PRE-CONCEPTION PREGNANCY PREPARING FOR BIRTH BIRTH THE FIRST MONTHS

CLOTHING AND CARE FOR THE BABY THE FIRST YEAR FROM ONE TO THREE RECOMMENDED READING, LINKS ARTICLES

ABOUT

About the site

How to make decisions

List of basic principles

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 the past: we are free, but we can also be alone. Raising children has become an individual, rather than a community, endeavour, and many parents ask themselves how to proceed, and on what to base their decision making.

For many parenting issues, we have access to a huge amount of information, a large portion of which is based on medical studies and psychology. We owe the success of modern births to hygiene and medicine. Psychology gives us great insight into the development and mechanics of socialisation and learning. But babies’ environment, how they are handled, how they are related to, what foods they are fed, things that seem subtle in their effects early on, 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 behoves us to take into consideration the whole picture of what a child is, and what their real needs are. From this perspective, it parents start to take a conscious approach to parenting, observe their children and ask themselves questions.

For example: 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. How do we

give them the greatest 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 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 the question 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 the practical side of these

questions. Those interested in the philosophical aspect

may pursue their research. (See Recommended reading,

Links, below.)

Mother and child

Mother and baby by Mary Cassat

I am 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. With taking up some of these ideas, one will be swimming upstream of social trends. But social trends are not generally 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.

See About the site