10 Buckets for Work Life Balance: #7 The Parenting Bucket

Last week, we went over all the work life balance buckets. The buckets go in order and the parenting bucket is one of them. We start on the bottom. When the bottom fills up, we can move up to the next level. In my coaching practice, we notice our thoughts and our body pain. We work on changing our beliefs, self love and self care. We get into boundaries and worthiness. All of that starts flourishing out in your relationships. Relationships with your spouse/significant other, relationships with your kids, relationships with God, with yourself. The relationship with yourself is really the first 5 buckets. Once you start having nice balanced relationships, then we can move into a having a work life balance where you’re living your purpose.

Mother’s Day Aftermath

I love social media. I saw some Moms were sharing how they had such a wonderful Mother’s Day. Some went to the spa, got a massage, breakfast in bed; the list goes on. Then, I see other parents that say, “Legit, worst Mothers Day ever!” For those bad days, remember it is just a day. You can shift all of that. I want to help show you how to have the most wonderful kids who are paying attention to you, playing with you, loving you, and writing you love letters. My children wrote me a fantastic love letter this Mothers Day. It was so cute. Literally, it was as if I got a card written from myself to myself.

There is no award for being a great mom, but there totally should be. Click To Tweet

The Parenting Bucket Realization: The Relationship Realm

Relationships seem to be where breakdown happens for most people (if it isn’t in the body). Today, we talk about relationships with our kids. When we talk about parenting, most people like to say how we should do this or that, parenting should look this way or that way … For example: You should let your children cry it out. Others say, attach them to your body and never let them go. Those are two completely different schools of thought.  How do you know what’s “right?”

What is Your Parenting Style?

What I have learned over the course of my studying is my parenting school of thought doesn’t have anything to do with that. The parenting style that I teach is; What is the RELATIONSHIP that you have with your children? How is it a reflection of the relationship you have with yourself?

I want to see Mothers and Fathers Empowered. I want to see Mothers and fathers living a joyful, loving life where they actually want to be connected with their kids, playing with them, enjoying them.

Our Projections and Reflections

People often don’t know how to be in relationship with their kids or themselves because no one was in relationship with them. If I have a really healthy, loving, beautiful relationship with myself and I like who I am, feel confident of who I am, then that is the relationship I will have with my children. 

One of my friends says, “If you ever want to know what you’re thinking, just ask your kids what they’re thinking. You’ll find out what you’re thinking because they’re actually a little reflection of who you are.”

 

 

Your Inner Child Struggles

For exaple: let’s say my inner child struggles with not feeling wanted. If I struggle with that, my children are more than likely going to feel unwanted by me. Perhaps the interaction that we have together is going to be one of neglect or abandonment.

With that I’d need work on MY stuff about feeling wanted, MY self worthiness and the simple fact that I MATTER.

Perhaps before, I did not feel like I mattered because of the way I was parented. When I work out my “stuff,” it doesn’t end up getting projected all over my children. You need to create this for yourself FIRST.

The Parenting Bucket Takeaway: Our Kids Learn From Us

• If I feel good inside, then my kids will feel good inside. We are models for them. Turns out, we don’t just model behavior, we model emotional sobriety too.
• If I’m feeling a lot of shame or anger and I don’t know what to do with that, I am not emotionally sober. Let’s look at how emotional patterns are passed down to the kids.  If my mother is an alcoholic and I never pick up a drink, chances are I am going to BEHAVE as an alcoholic behaves.  This is what we do; we model our parent’s behavior.
• If I’m modeling a life of being a victim or a life of shame, my kid will also think they aren’t good enough or that they’re the victim. Our kids learn from us.
• If you’re in any kind of denial and want to know who you are, look at your kids because they are modeling you. Don’t blame your spouse. What you’re noticing is who you are. You might notice your spouse is blah blah blah blah but it is really you.

Whatever we see in someone else is what we see in our self. Click To Tweet

I’m Not Good Enough

A lot of times we’ll go, “Well, my mom made me feel a lot of shame, neglect or abandonment.” In order to deal with our own abandonment, we try to do the opposite.  Then we end up smothering our child.

Have you ever seen someone who comes from really abusive family, but they’re super loving with their kid?

The Parenting Bucket Craziness: Two Totally Different Feelings, Same Underline Message

The problem with that is the underlining emotional place we’re coming from is exactly the same in both examples of parenting in the same family. If I was neglected on this side and smothering on this other side.. underneath feeling neglected is the feeling of ‘I’m not good enough’.

In response, I end up smothering my children because I feel they feel they’re not good enough. They get the same message that they aren’t good enough either.  It doesn’t matter if I “abandon” them or “smother” them.  The message is the same: you’re not enough.

Instead, what we want to work on is our own not good enough (or whatever our thing is) conversation that we have with ourselves.

When I begin to feel worthy, important, that I matter, that I am beautiful, that I have a contribution to the world, then I start acting in a way that is beautiful and a contribution to the world. I’m giving and loving. My children see me, they see that and they start modeling that kind of behavior.

The Parenting Bucket Dialog: Communicate Effectively with Your Children

Let’s say your child is a teenager and you’re learning this new way of being now. More than likely it can make a mess with your kid’s foundation.

They spent all those years learning who to be from you and then, basically, you took that away from them. You’re now being someone else. It’s unfamiliar which is very confusing for teenagers. Yet, if you are shifting that in the middle, this is where communication comes in handy.

Being able to communicate effectively with your kid, can take things to a different level.  This is what I mean when I say the best parenting technique is RELATIONSHIP.  If you do not know how to do that, please reach out to me.

What doesn’t work, especially with teenagers, is saying, “I’m the boss! Do what I say! You have to listen to me!” Yea, that doesn’t work.

We are all people.

Enroll Them

My cat was scratching my furniture. I immediately was like, “No! No! No! She’s not supposed to do that! She has a scratching post! She is supposed to scratch the scratching post!”

Even my friend was like, “Hey, Heather, you’re not going to be able to get your cat to do what you want. If she wants to scratch the furniture, that’s exactly what she is going to do. She is her own independent being.”

I don’t know if you communicate with your cat but I do. I tell her that I love her. I tell her how I know she wants to scratch the furniture, so lets to it over here at the scratching post.

I don’t know if that works with the cat well but it is the same concept with children.

Just as I can not get my cat to stop scratching the furniture, what makes me think I’m going to get my kid to start loving civics and get an A is civics??

He too is his own independent person.

This is about Relationship, Enrollment, Love, Communicating. Enroll them into having a loving relationship with you. It is a back and forth thing.

Win/Win Negotiation

If you are a Moms, I hope you had a good Mothers Day. If you didn’t, you get to look at what is inside of you.

Where are you trying to control?

Control is where all power struggles come from. I am sure you have noticed 2 year-olds are like, “No! I can’t! No, I won’t! You can’t make me!” 

That is because they’re starting to learn their independence. The first 6 months they are completely dependent on you. From about 6 months to age 2, they are learning how to be away from you and their own sense of independence still. Some of us never stop being 2 year-olds.

Creating Negotiation Skills

Two year-olds haven’t actually learned communication skills yet. They do not know how to win/win negotiate with someone. We teach them that as a parent or caregiver.

If you can’t figure our how to teach win/win negotiation skills with your 2 year-old. Chances are you are probably struggling with it in all of your relationships.

It has everything to do with you’re own sense of self worth, self love and knowing what your boundaries are, being able to communicate with another human being and being able to empathize with them.

If your 2 year old really wants to do something you don’t allow them to do, you can help them shift and do something else by empathizing with them.

Your Inner Child

I recently did inner child work with a hypnosis client.

He had a big family, full of people and he was the youngest. Since he was the youngest child, he was put to bed early and everybody else in the family was having fun without him.

His feelings around that were of abandonment and neglect.

 

I Am Not Part Of It

In this big house full of people, his conscious thought is, I had a happy family, a lot of people around, we had a lot of fun together but their were so many moments where he felt left out or that he wasn’t old enough to participate in the fun. There were also plenty of moments where there wasn’t even a parent around, just a lot of siblings.

Sometimes we tell ourselves, our conscious mind, ‘I had a great childhood’ so we can cope.

When we go back and do the inner child work, we can see how different things were.

He felt so alone. He laid in bed alone, no one tucked him in, no one said good night to him. He felt as if everyone else was having fun and he wasn’t included.

The Parent Bucket Breakthrough: How Hypnosis Helps to Overcome Obstacles and Feeling Included

Now, when he is parenting with his kids, he doesn’t know how to include them because he never felt included. It can be as simple as that.

In the hypnosis, we reprogrammed him so that he felt loved and included.

He gets to have a voice and say, “Hey! I don’t feel included!” Then, we get to figure out how to include him. He then goes, “OH MY GOSH! I am not doing this with my own children and now I realize why.”

Next thing you know, everything starts to change. It changed in the way he started to relate to his own children. This is kind of how this works.

Balance

This is where peace comes in.

You see, Balance is a thing that happens inside of you in the moment.

If in the moment I am feeling balanced, there is peace in my house, with my children and with my job.

Balance is saying, ‘I feel really good in this moment about what I am doing.’

That is really all it is. Not scheduling. Not having a balanced schedule where everything is timed and perfect.

I used to think it meant scheduling.

In my opinion, it’s not about making sure all those boxes are checked. It is about taking those little moments in time to say, how do I get myself back into a place of balance?

When you feel balanced, you are living your life in balance.

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• We can chat and discuss whether or not it is normal kid behavior, or something they are picking up from you.
• How you learned it.
• Do you want to do inner child work?
• Do you want to learn how to communicate effectively with your child?

READ MORE FROM ME

Over the years, I have been a serial learner and practitioner, taking in information about psychology, religion, spirituality, science, medicine, quantum physics, relationships, parenting, and overall, general happiness and work-life balance.  I’ve been fascinated in what it takes to and have created my life of pure joy, happiness, balance and peace. It is my mission to spread what I have learned and practiced to you in ways that are simple, easy to understand AND implement.  I have served people in achieving realignment in their bodies, relationships and purpose for over 20 years.  If you liked this article and you want to read more, please visit one of the links below:

• Watch my YouTube Channel: Heather Hundhausen
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• Breakthrough:  I’d really be happy to support you with any of it. My mission is to create peace in every family, in every home. I want to see Mothers and Fathers Empowered with joy, love, connection and peace. 

I hope that you’re having a wonderful day and that you have a great week. I also hope that you can take this information with you out in the world, bring it into your homes and into yourself. Look at your own inner child stuff. How are you treating yourself? How are you treating your own children?

Take some self love and self care today. Treat yourself. Treat yourself the way that you would like to be treated so that the people around you know what that is. If we know how to treat ourselves, then the people around us know how to treat us. I appreciate you. I appreciate you being here and letting me share. If you got some value out of this video please don’t hesitate to share with others and leave a comment.