Mark Fraser-Grant, founder, and partner of Beyond Coaching joins host Candice Dick to discuss what it takes to be conscious and emotionally available for your children. What does it take to give our children roots and wings?
They explore overcoming some of the obstacles that we don’t even recognise are in our way with regards to parenting our children.
Mark has been coaching for 15 years as a trainer and facilitator from corporate programs, transformational programs to personal development and in this experience found a holistic link to all of it. He says that using your own life as a template you are learning and growing as you help others learn and grow
With over 10,000 hours in the field training coaching facilitating he recognised the need for consciousness coaching and how we must bring consciousness to anything we are doing. In traveling the world studying consciousness and bringing it to training it led him to a particular passion…parenting
What we learn from looking back at our parents.
Mark discusses how exciting it is to explore the idea of how we were raised
“A fish doesn’t know it’s in water until you pull it out”
You can copy your parent’s way of parenting or rebel against it but both have consequences. We have to appreciate that our parents didn’t know what they didn’t know.
What we tend to avoid follows us around sometimes.
Mark speaks about his upbringing and how it was was abusive; and how learning to embrace his violence and understand where it came from has made him a better parent. For him, martial arts was a beautiful way to channel anger and violence constructively.
No one is perfect.
No matter how our parent’s parent, we will find voids.
It is important to listen to let your children tell you what is going on instead of projecting on your children what you think is wrong. Don’t dismiss their emotions.
Some children grow up in a household where nothing terrible happens but end up in a worse state than children who have been through really challenging things. It is hard to qualitatively relate emotional turmoil because it is subject and specific to the individual.
What we need to do to grow.
If we are going to be emotionally available to our children, we need to be present which requires that we work on ourselves. We have to clear out our emotional baggage.
It is important to put away our parent ego, apologise in front of our kids, pay attention and be there. Everyone can improve on this. There is always room for growth.
All parents need to become a bit humble, understand they don’t know all the answers. Nothing is isolated if we are invested in ourselves, it benefits all areas of our lives. If your communication works, your life works.
Upcoming event
September 20-22, the Roots and Wings training will take place in Belgium
It is an opportunity for the parent to find their deeper roots and wings.
It is a powerful process to connect you to yourself and connect you to a deeper level of awareness in terms of what comes through you.
Each day has a particular theme:
Day 1 you as a child
Day 2 your children as a mirror of you
Day 3 you and your child together…what interactions can look like
Links
- Download the episode here
- Beyond Coaching
- Roots & Wings Consciousness Coaching Program – Belgium
- Visit the Contemporary Parenting on Facebook
Last week’s episode: Problem-solving with our children
Next week’s episode: Emotionally Intelligent Routines and structures
Podcast Host: Candace Dick
Guest: Mark Fraser-Grant