If you have little ones, you know all too well the stress it can create. Dealing with their growing personalities, rebellion, clean-ups, and sibling rivalry, it’s a lot. But thankfully, mindful parenting is creating quite the buzz because it allows you to learn from the challenges, connect to yourself, and strengthen your family bond. And there are several mindful parenting tips that will help you ease into the process rather than overwhelm you to adopt its benefits.
What Is Mindful Parenting?
You’re probably already aware of mindfulness and how it helps you connect to the present moment and even teaches you how to raise mindful children. Well, mindful parenting includes applying the same principles to the everyday challenges you encounter within your family dynamic. Over time, with practice and self-love, you learn how to respond to your children’s behavior rather than reacting. Of course, parenting won’t always be sunshine and butterflies. But mindfulness allows you to understand how challenges elicit responses from your trauma and how to heal on a deeper level collectively.
What Are the Benefits of Mindful Parenting?
Several studies have explored how mindful parenting provides several benefits and is the key to creating a happier home.
- Reduces child behavioral problems
- Improves communication
- Strengthens your family bond
- Teaches you how to be a more present parent
- Lowers aggression and emotional reactivity
- Fosters emotional regulation and emotional intelligence
- Significantly lessens depression and anxiety
- Increases gratitude, awareness, and happiness
6 Mindful Parenting Tips and Techniques
1. Become aware of your triggers
Unfortunately, based on childhood trauma and other factors, our fight-flight-freeze stress response can become confused, and our bodies can deliver the same reaction to your child spilling their juice to someone breaking into your home. Sounds wild, but our amygdala, the part of our brain responsible for producing our fight-or-flight, can’t always distinguish between real dangers and false ones. Therefore, it’s exceedingly important to become aware of your triggers, i.e., situations that elicit an emotional reaction from your childhood. For example, your child fails a test, and it triggers a memory of when your dad said you weren’t good enough. You now subconsciously pressure your child to excel, causing a rift between you. To understand what situations trigger a strong emotional response, begin becoming aware and asking yourself these questions
- Why does this situation upset me?
- Why did I react this way?
- What does this say about my childhood experiences?
The following tips will also help you develop increased awareness.
2. Bring attention to your emotions during conflict
When you’re in a conflict with your child/children, try to bring attention to your emotions. Whether it’s about refusing their dinner or having a temper tantrum in public, observe your feelings in the present moment. How do you feel? Angry, upset, disappointed? Label the emotion and accept it with compassion. Take it a step further by sitting with your feelings to learn the meaning. What are they trying to tell you about the situation? Then take a moment to practice a breathing technique for anxiety to anchor you and allow you to see the conflict from a different perspective.
3. Pause and reflect to respond
When a situation triggers a strong emotional response, it can be exceedingly difficult to calm your anger. But if you react and yell, it will deliver similar consequences to physical punishment. Indeed, research shows yelling produces increased anxiety, feelings of depression, and behavioral problems. Therefore, when you feel your blood boil, take a moment to cool off before returning. One of the best mindful tips and techniques to center you is to learn how to practice rain meditation.
- Recognize what is happening in the present moment
- Accept your emotions. “I am angry”
- Investigate with kindness. “Why am I angry?”
- Nurture yourself. “What do I need to feel better?”
- Non-identify and notice how your mood shifted
4. Listen to your children’s viewpoint
Once you’ve cooled off, try to listen to your child’s perspective. Allow them to vent, encourage them to label their emotions, and collectively work together to solve the conflict. Doing so will make them feel valued and that their thoughts and opinions matter. Additionally, it gives you the reality check that kids act like kids. They’re learning how to regulate their emotions, and sometimes, they will push your buttons. But when you take a moment to collect yourself and return to listen, it teaches you how to avoid common parenting mistakes and how to teach your children about their emotions. Win-win.
5. Reduce the perfectionism
You’re a parent, but you’re also a human. This means while your children are growing and learning about their emotions, you’re also healing from your own childhood. Indeed, parenting stirs up painful childhood memories and is the breeding ground for intergenerational trauma. So, it’s impossible to be a perfect parent. Therefore, learn how to stop being a perfectionist and accept that mistakes are a part of the process. But given this, make time to prioritize simple self-care ideas for parents who need a break so you can return with more compassion and love for yourself and your children.
6. Develop your own mindful practice
One way to help you mindfully connect is to create your own haven. For example, try to incorporate an evening routine when your kids fall asleep to encourage you to start the next day with mindful awareness. You can practice progressive muscle relaxation or a few self-soothing techniques. Taking this moment for yourself will allow you to step back and observe your emotions and areas you can improve. Additionally, it will also foster your family to collectively learn how to adopt a mindful evening routine for kids to join you.
Being a mindful parent is not always easy, especially with the everyday stress parenting creates. However, perceive it as a series of baby steps. Each time you respond instead of react, prioritize your self-care, and forgive yourself for making mistakes, you’re practicing mindful parenting tips that will strengthen your family bond and make you feel a little bit lighter and happier each day.
This post contains affiliate links.
If you found this collection of mindful parenting tips helpful, please share this post on Pinterest!
And if you’re looking for more parenting tips and tools, please follow our Parenting board!
