Ep 431 - Finding What's Best For Your Children

Ian Hawkins 0:02

Are you ready, ready to release internal pain to find confidence, clarity and direction for your future, to live a life of meaning, fulfillment and contribution to trust your intuition again, but something's been holding you back, you've come to the right place. Welcome. I'm a Ian Hawkins, the host and founder of The Grief Code podcast. Together, let's heal your unresolved or unknown grief by unlocking your grief code. As you tune into each episode, you will receive insight into your own grief, how to eliminate it, and what to do next. Before we start by one request, if any new insights or awareness land with you during this episode, please send me an email at info at the Ian Hawkins coaching.com. And let me know what you found. I know the power of this work, I love to hear the impact these conversations have. Okay, let's get into it. Back prior to kids, I was very, I was an awesome parent, extremely judgmental, always looking at what other people would do their parenting and wondering why on earth they were either doing that making that choice letting your child get away with X, Y and Zed. Yeah. And then you have children and you realize that just how judgmental you were and just how wrong you were. Fast forward as they get older. Plenty of advice from people, parents in laws, friends, any former media telling you how you should do things. And some people are quite vocal with their thoughts on it. And they'll tell you. And sometimes you feel pressured to make certain decisions, and sometimes you stand strong in your values. And it's important to know what you stand for what values you do hold. But beyond all of that, it's realizing that the best thing for your child is the best thing for your child, not what you think not what someone else thinks not what the pressure is on them to do. Because it's all different, very different. And we're running these patterns from generation after generation. And it's so important to let them find their own way. regard them. But don't let anyone else tell you what you should be doing with your child. There's plenty of judgment out there. There's plenty of ideas on what's what there's plenty of noise around different practices that are right and aren't right. And of course everyone has their variation on that. So how can one way be right? Uniform what works for your child. And importantly, give them the freedom to be able to explore that always comes down to self. Which means being the role model of that freedom of choice of self control. Not trying to control them. Because they work out pretty from a pretty young age that you can't control them. And then they work out as they get older. That unless you physically restrain them, and they're pretty good at knowing their rights on that as well, then they're not you're not gonna be able to stop them from going and doing what they want to do anyway. Now that I've physically restrained my children as teenagers, it's just knowing that they that's the level that I know just how little you can control them. And in fact, they'll find ways to try and control and manipulate us. So questioning on a day to day basis. Am I doing what's best for my child? Is my child having the opportunity to do what's best for them? Or am I trying to control them? Am I trying to impart my ideas that come from a unhealed past am I trying to teach them things that come from my patterns of behavior? Am I try my best to do things one way but my patterns are showing something completely different? I think sports one of the great examples of that is that you can try Teach your child that sports midships more important than winning or that you got to focus on enjoyment, and not winning, but at the same time, your reaction to results is very clear where you stand. And an inadvertent role modeling of what's important. You think about the reaction when your child wins, super excited, you think about their reaction when they have a big win even more excited. And then maybe reaction when they draw pretty good or even lose, and you're still really encouraging, but it's not the same reaction, and they see it. And they know the difference. And they also see it in every other facet of life as well. On the one hand, you might be saying, Ah, I'm not putting any pressure on you, but your behavior and your subtleties which they see straight through right. Now that those suddenly might be saying something completely different. And it is part of the journey as a parent of letting go. Now, I've worked with parents and their children together, mainly athletes, but not always. Because it's important to give those two perspectives to both sides. And I've learned this the hard way myself having experienced this through sport and through school, and learning as much as I could about empowering them rather than controlling them. And also witnessed it through older years, where parents and in law's still trying to find their way of imparting their control. Often, not consciously, often subtly. But that is running patterns that they've been running for years and running patterns that have been running for probably many generations. So again, no one's fault. No judgment. It's an awareness piece. So that you can change so that you can break that generational pattern, create that no new pen. So whether your children to 2040 or somewhere in between. Knowing that role modeling is far more powerful, that the elements of Tronic control, run deeper than you think. And they were best intentions not to control still shows up until you do the work on you. Because until you do, the same patterns are going to play out and they're going to play out generation after generation. So become the circuit breaker. Change your patterns, and see the joy and the freedom that your children will experience and the deepening of connections between you and them that you never thought possible. I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Grief Code podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Please share it with a friend or family member that you know would benefit from hearing it too. If you are truly ready to heal your unresolved or unknown grief, let's chat. Email me at info at Ian Hawkins coaching.com You can also stay connected with me by joining the Grief Code community at Ian Hawkins coaching.com forward slash The Grief Code and remember, so that I can help even more people to heal. Please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform