Blog for Stickfest https://www.spl-i.com/articles-blogs
Dr Gauri Seth
Parent and Family Wellness Expert, Doctor (MBChB BSc) Bringing holistic science to parents for sustainable mental health and transgenerational impact
Parents and early care-givers are uniquely placed to provide healthy messages for emotional wellness for our children for the rest of their lives. This is an enormously empowering and exciting stage of life, and supporting parents with this is my mission. By tuning in to conscious connected parenting, there are simple things we can do every day as parents to promote family dynamics that support self-esteem and self-worth in children- which can support their mental wellness for life. What is Conscious Connection and why will it help my family? Conscious connection is a two-step process where:
1) Parents pause, and consciously connect to their own state of mind.
2) With greater control over their own state of mind, parents can then consciously connect with their child, in an objective and non-judgemental way, to provide the emotional attunement which they need.
By bringing conscious awareness to those difficult moments when feelings are triggered, tolerance is slipping, and tensions are rising, those are the magic moments right there, where we can pause, zoom out, connect with ourselves as adults, and try really hard to be objective in the moment, on what's going on and why.
Conscious connection requires parents to consider their own wellness and state of mind. Self-care for parents is paramount, because parenting is hard, exhausting, and secondly, because it is harder to connect with our children in an authentic way if we are in a difficult state of mind our self.
Conscious connection also encourages a realistic view of parenting, rather than striving for being perfect. If we are constantly trying to be in control of everything and wanting things to be perfect, the chances are we are not consciously connected to our authentic selves as parents- which is necessary in order to connect with our children.
How can I help?
Through conscious connected parenting techniques, I provide connection coaching for families to support the parent-child connection, for emotional wellness. As a mother of three under eight, an emotional intelligence coach with a background in medicine, psychiatry and psychotherapy, and as an award winning academic, I have pioneered a method which families can apply to their own context, to ensure their children grow up with messages that boost self-esteem, positive self-regard, and self-respect. I also advise parents in modelling the art of seeing things form multiple perspectives, which can empower children with an agile mindset. This is particularly important as the pandemic has created unprecedented pressure on family systems. One takeaway message from experience is that we don't know if and when things in our external world might change. What we can do, however, is practice and cultivate a flexible and agile mindset, with resilience to problem solve and adapt.
For more information on my work please see www.brainbasedconnection.co.uk and my LinkedIn http://linkedin.com/in/dr-gauri-seth-168638142
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