Dr Shefali is the author of the book. Trust me she has divided the book into 3 stages.
Stage 1: It explores your relationship with your child in great detail
Stage 2: It explores your relationship as a child with your parents.
Stage 3: Conflict Resolution
Stage 1:
• Focus on the right problem: The author advises us to focus on the correct problem. If you feel frustrated regarding some acts of you child, asking this question might help: “Is it really because of my frustration or is it the past emotional baggage, I am carrying from my own childhood”
• Destroy the fantasy: Parents have certain expectations related to their children which might be exact opposite to the reality. For e.g., a mother wants her child to be a good athlete. But in reality her child is not good in sports, rather he is good at debate.
• Stop controlling your children: As the famous poet, Khalil Gibran said: “Your kids come from you, not through you.” Thus, one should stop controlling each and every action of their child. At the best, you can advise them not to do so. Let them learn from failures, they have their own share of struggles. Don’t ease you their take. Sometimes, it is out of our own personal guilt: “Am I giving my 100% to my children”. Remember, no one is perfect.
• Stop the endless chase of happiness and success: We want our children to be happy and successful as the same time. When asked about the notion of happiness to a group of people, everyone had their own answers. For one, happiness was getting a promotion in job, while for other it was spending more time with his family. Thus, these terms are subjective.
• Dump your Savior Complex: We want to save our kids from each bad part of life, whether it is sex, drugs or other practices. It genetically, our savior complex. According to psychology, too much control might actually leads to the opposite.
Example: forcing our children to do exceptionally well in exams, might actually lead them feeling burned out and stressed.
• Discard the labels: Many a times, we tend to label our children.
Example: my child is so lazy, stubborn, stupid, arrogant, socially introvert etc. According to psychology, out thoughts, emotions and behaviors are directly linked to each other. Thus, refrain from labelling your child as bad or even good. People are what they are i.e. neutral.
PART 2 of the book:
1. Parent’s own childhood experiences
This part states that the how the parents raise their child is in direct co- relation with how they wanted to be raised in their own childhood.
For example: A parent wanted to learn violin in his childhood. But due to the dogmatic view of the society and his parents, he never got the opportunity to do so. Now, as a parent, he would want his own child to play violin. But, does the child actually want to be a violinist. Maybe the child is a strong athlete and want to invest more time in it.
2. Parents need to face their own fears:
Parents themselves have their own fears, such as fear of being rejected or abandoned. These fears trigger them to show some kind of maladaptive behavior. So, it is very important for the parents themselves to be aware of their own insecurities.
3. Types of imposter ego parents wear:
Let’s take a scenario.
A child said the following wordings to his parent:
“I hate you, you are the worst parent in the world. Life would have been much better, if I were an orphan”.
The ego of the parent will emerge in the following ways:
FIGHTER EGO: A parent with this ego might respond back, “What the fu*k did you say?” Thus, he will show “anger”
FIXER EGO: A parent with this ego might try to control the child’s perception towards him, instead of controlling the child’s behavior.
FRIGNER EGO: Such people our attention- seekers. They might think, “How this situation might look to the outside world”. They would tend to find all the ways in order to avoid being perceived negatively by the society.
FREEZER EGO: Such parent will be paralyzed or will feel freeze by these wordings. Such people will prefer to tend to their own comfort and will hide behind an emotionless, cold wall.
FLEER LOOP: Such parents will not take it personally, since they are completely disconnected from any personal responsibility due to their own traumas. Their children might feel themselves as invisible, and realize that they are insignificant to their parents.
Stage 3: Conflict Resolution
1. Setting boundaries?
The author shares the experience of her client. His name was Mr. John (name changed). He made a strict routine for her daughter, Marsha. It included, to get up at 7 a.m., have breakfast by 8 a.m., go to school etc. The bedtime was sharp at 9.00 p.m. John made her daughter to strictly follow the routine.
As parents we could be more empathetic towards our kid’s situation. When John realized this, he was able to mold the routine. Letting Marsha get up at 9.00 am on the weekends was perfectly alright for him
2. Author’s view related to making mistakes
It’s completely normal for the kids to make mistakes. Mistakes are first hand experiences, which teaches a lot. Parents should not spoon feed their kids. Rather, parents should empower the kids’ by showing compassion and humility. Mistakes teach the children how to problem solve and find ways to recover and rebirth. One should have unconditional positive regard.
3. VENT:
It’s the author’s way to communicate their feelings effectively to their children:
1. Validate: It means meeting the children exactly where they are.
For example: The child comes home crying since his friend teased him at school. Rather than saying, “stop overreacting, it happens with everyone”, one can validate it by saying, “I know, how you feel. Tell me more about it. This might ease out the emotional burden on you.”
2. Empathize:
What is not empathy?
a. One doesn’t have to go through the exact same experience in order to empathize with anyone.
b. One doesn’t have to solve somebody else’s problem in order to feel empathy.
c. One doesn’t have to micromanage anyone’s life situations, create insight, or to help the other person come to a new awareness of their own reality.
d. One doesn’t have to judge the other person. Rather empathy is being non- judgmental.
How to effectively empathize:
a. Show detachment: Detachment and depersonalization are important in order to make the children feel heard. Instead of saying, “Don’t blame me for it, it’s your own mistake that you earned less marks”, say this, “I know how you feel, it might be quite difficult to get less marks, but don’t worry, talk things out.”
b. Show respect and recognition: If the kid is having an angry outburst. Say this, “I know what you are feeling, but can you lower down your voice a little bit, if it’s ok”, rather than shouting back in return.
c. Apologize: Saying sorry doesn’t make oneself small. Rather it make the person much bigger. Apology should be from the heart, rather than just words.
3. Normalize/ Neutral: It means to stay neutral in the state of chaos. For example: Your kid is really scared after seeing a spider. Instead of reacting with terror, just say, “Son, if ok to feel this was, I was the same during my childhood, but it just a living creature, no?”
4. Transform: It doesn’t mean transforming you child situation yourself. Rather it includes giving reassance so that the child is able to transform his/her situation all by himself.
Always say YES:
There are two modes of the brain: doing mode and being mode. The doing mode lives in present, in the moment. While, the being mode resides in the past or the future, thinking about the various possibilities.
The kids are always in the doing mode. They are not thinking about the future.
Thus, when the kid makes a plan whether to buy something, never say no. Always say yes. Saying no might make the child fixated on just one thing, while saying yes might make him think about the next moment.
Embrace the new you:
You might feel, if the information regarding how to raise my children now, I had 10 years ago, life would have been so easy. Why to think like that?
Think this way: “You have woken from a long sleep of 1 decade”. Now make the changes which you always wanted to make, in order to make the life more full filled. After all you only live once.