Emotionally Intelligent Parenting

Corporal punishment and the view “children should be seen and not heard” were once cultural standards of accepted parenting. There is progress, as these notions are very much up for debate today. On one side of the debate is connected parenting, backed by research that shines a light on the profoundly harmful effects of the old parenting paradigm. On the other side of the debate are wounded adults who identify with programmed ideas of what “respect” looks like: vertical relationships that contract a child's identity and demand respect even if (and perhaps especially if) unearned, rather than horizontal ones that teach respect through modeling.

What is often missing in these debates is the heart-led, expansive seeing of those who reside unconsciously in the wounded box of their own childhood experiences. To challenge a paradigm is to challenge one’s worldview, identity, and the adaptations one makes to survive or make sense of one's own childhood experiences. Choosing to process one’s childhood wounding is no small thing. It is painful, deep, and requires a self-reflective, honest, and self-loving perspective. And before one enters that perspective, they first require expanded awareness. Expanded awareness shakes one’s very foundation and worldview, affecting those around us who choose to stay in old, maladaptive homeostasis. When family members or friends who share culture or beliefs are unable or unwilling to expand their awareness, we are asked to choose between autonomy and attachment, which is a very uncomfortable situation.

Lineage wounding is created by conditional love, control dynamics, abuse, addiction, and other results of parental self-disconnection; all of which look like head-lead, fear-based parenting, as opposed to heart-lead, conscious, emotionally intelligent parenting. When we are dissociated from feeling, when we don’t know how to validate our own emotions, when we are interacting with our children from programs and projections we don’t even see or know are there, it is challenging to choose differently.

Add in the consumerist nature of the world: the state of fear that leads to more consumption; notions of self-worth based on what we buy, what we own, and what we look like; the constant movement most parents experience inside of long work days, stress, and ideas that we will all finally be happy with just one more trip to Disney World. This misdirection is entirely cut off from nature and creation; from ourselves. Kids and adults are addicted to screens and have forgotten the healing, grounding effects of what our ancestors knew well: ceremony, nature, gratitude, presence, and the remembrance that life is a path meant to increase wisdom, discernment, and soul embodiment. As we are pushed more and more to look outside ourselves for happiness, pushed more and more into the material world, more and more into technological centering and artificial intelligence, we are called to remember and practice more deeply to Be Here Now, to love, to hold space for our children to grow on their own terms, learn in their own way, and rise into who they are here to become.

Daniel Goleman popularized the term “emotional intelligence” in his book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Goleman defined the emotional intelligence domains as follows: Know Your Emotions, Manage Your Emotions, Motivate Yourself, Recognize and Know Other’s Emotions, and Manage the Emotions of Others. Emotional intelligence has been defined as the ability to understand our own feelings, empathize with others' feelings, and regulate our emotions. When we can regulate our own emotions, we co-regulate with our children and other loved ones. When we accept ourselves, we can hold the container for others to discover and accept themselves, too.

Children who do not have the emotional capacity to regulate invite us to identify the gamut of emotions within ourselves, from fear and shame to uncensored expressions of joy, so that we can allow all of it in our children. Fears of abandonment, rejection, and feeling unloved are organic to the human experience, and when children experience these fears, they hold up a mirror that invites us to integrate our own younger selves.

Most of us want to be effective parents. Most of us want our children to be happy and healthy. Most of us are devoted parents. Most of us would die for, would sacrifice anything for our children. But when we are oblivious to the forms of control driving our parenting, it’s difficult to see the results.

I remember a family party I went to many years ago. A mother was very angry at her young child because he wasn’t behaving the way she thought he should. I don’t remember the specifics, just that the young child seemed in a mood and having a difficult time, and the mother was sulking and very upset herself. Instead of asking what was wrong and connecting with him in that space, she was immersed in her own emotionally immature reactivity. When I approached her privately and gently told her it was okay, and said I was there to support her if she wanted to share her parenting frustrations, she became very angry with me and told me not to speak to her about it. I had noted for many years her need to control adults as well, knew her parenting was affected by her own unaddressed inner child fragmentation... and I quietly backed away. We are ready when we are ready, and no one else can do the work for us.

This is parenting that will, over time, serve to box a child in, clenched and fist-like, disconnected and self-loathing, shame-filled. The cycle will repeat. When we don’t allow our children to experience their emotions, we are cutting ourselves and our children off from growing and becoming more conscious together. The result is false and caged, programmed and small.

Simple emotional intelligence education can be a bridge to new considerations and, eventually, integration. I am attaching a self-led emotional intelligence workshop, which is also available on my website under "free psychoeducational downloads," found here. We can all practice the art of being with our feelings without resisting them; it’s the tension between feeling and resistance that creates disconnection. When we learn to hold the whole spectrum of feelings with acceptance and maturity, this is called “integration.”

Complete Emotional Intelligence Workshop.pdf

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I am always available for parenting coaching, counseling, and mentorship.