Welcome to the New Paradigm:
If you are tired of too much stress around being a parent, exhausted from constantly ensuring that everything is ‘perfect’ for your child, longing to parent more effectively – it’s time to make the leap from ‘parenting’ to ‘parenthood.’
Parenting is important. It includes everything we do in rearing our children, the many tasks, activities, duties and obligations of being a parent.
Parenthood is much bigger. In fact, it is the phase of life you are in right now, just as important as infancy, childhood, adulthood and other life phases. At Parents First!™, we have discovered that parents can significantly increase their joy and fulfillment as well as their effectiveness as parents by shifting how they see themselves and their children.
Parenthood is your experience and ways of being, and it is the foundation on which you build a nurturing environment for your children. It’s as if you, as a parent, are singing a song to your child. Moment by moment, they hear the words and music of your song. The “words” are parenting, but the heart and soul of the song, its “music,” is parenthood. Your children are learning how to live their lives by imitating how you embody and embrace your parenthood.
Join us in stepping into this new paradigm shift — from parenting to parenthood.
Please take our free parenthood self-appraisal now to see whether Parents First!™ programs might be the help you’ve been looking for.
Is Your Child Thriving?
Is your child enjoying a passionate, expansive and appropriately-structured childhood or adolescence?
Or do your worries oppress both you and and your child?
We know that your intentions are loving, even when you are frustrated and unsettled in your approach to parenting.
Like most parents, your approach to child rearing is almost always rooted in finding a way to protect your child from life’s many dangers and guarantee their success in life. The problem is, no matter how we try, we can’t protect them from everything.
So we settle for the illusion of control as a means of protecting our precious children. We hover over them, send them to endless classes, police their every move.
But what is the result when we ‘control’ a child? At best – subservience and compliance; at worst – resistance, even rebellion.
So how does a parent know what’s best?
Most of us just do what our own parents did. How many times have you said to yourself or a friend, ‘I can’t believe that just came out of my mouth. I sounded exactly like my Mom (or Dad).’
Or we find ourselves remembering our childhood and then doing the exact opposite of what we learned from our parents.
But I’m Already a Devoted Parent
Most of us spent the months before our first child was born reading books and web-browsing, looking to gain the knowledge we would need if we were to be great parents. We asked our friends for advice, maybe even took a class on parenting skills, so we could master this challenge that many others, so it seems, already figured out.
But what do we find? We find articles and books that offer mechanisms for handling the challenges of raising a child: how to teach them good manners, how to support your daughter to honor her body, how to teach your son to be strong and sensitive. These tips and techniques are fine as far as they go, but they only address the symptoms of our distress and do not resolve its sources. They point out some of the trees, but they don’t help us see the forest.
Maybe it’s time to stop looking for the perfect answer outside of ourselves.
Maybe It’s Time to Become an Empowered Parent
What if it’s time for us to learn how to empower ourselves…and our children?
Now, empowering is not magical thinking, imagining, for example, that ‘If I treat my child like a little adult and let him make all his own decisions, everything will be fine.’ That would be like a gardener planting seeds and thinking she will harvest a great crop at the end of the growing season by simply allowing it to grow ‘naturally’ without any attention.
No, real gardening requires preparing the soil, watering, weeding, adding fertilizer, trimming the seedlings, and so forth. Like a master gardener, there is a music and rhythm to being an empowering parent.
But we as parents cannot be empowering if we are not empowered by who we are.
We have investigated the ways of being that allow parents to be fully present and inspiring to their children, while making their own lives as enjoyable and fulfilling as they wish their children’s lives to be. Empowering parenting requires a new mindset and a special set of attentive acts, too.
We call this mindset and approach your Parenthood Quotient™, and it is key to being successful and joyful as a parent. Take our free parenthood self-appraisal now to assess your own Parenthood Quotient™.
Parenthood self-appraisal
Take our free parenthood self-appraisal now to assess your own approach to parenthood.
Introducing The Parenthood Quotient™
Sometimes it’s hard to remember: you were once a child! And most of what you unconsciously “know” about parenting came from your own parents, religion and society. In all likelihood, you are either trying to faithfully imitate or vehemently reject these historically shaped approaches to parenting.
Parents First!™ invites you to look deeply at who you are and declare a dream for your family – and from that place create a new relationship with your child. We don’t teach “parenting;” our goal is to stimulate and foster “parenthood.”
Do you remember when your child took her first steps? Before she did that, she fell many times. How did you support her as she learned to pull herself up, stand unsteadily on her own two feet and, ultimately, walk a few steps to your arms?
You allowed her be creative. You let her struggle and fall. You encouraged and acknowledged her. You made sure she didn’t bump her head against the corner of the coffee table, but you knew she would master walking on her own if you simply allowed and encouraged her to do so. And she did it! Unless limited by a medical or physical condition, all children eventually learn to walk. They all learn to talk. They learn to feed and dress themselves.
Too often, we fear that our children can’t master new challenges without our help. How will my son learn to talk properly, ride a bike, clear the table, dress himself? Can I allow him to explore these tasks and invent his own solutions? Or, do I constantly tell him to do things ‘the right way’? Do I protect him from ‘failure’ by handling these tasks for him with the result being he never learns to do them for himself? Or do I let him explore, discover, risk and accomplish?
The key issue here is not your child. It’s you: your attitude and approach; your patience; and, your willingness to allow your child to develop and grow. And how well you manage allowing freedom (but not too much) and providing support (but not too little) are elements of your Parenthood Quotient™.
At Parents First!, we want you to be the best parent you can be. And that means, the focus of our programs is you. Not your child(ren). You.
Take our free parenthood self-appraisal now to assess your own approach to parenthood.
Start Your Adventure Now
Parents First!™ programs offer you a fresh take on being a parent.
We give you an opportunity to reinvent your relationship with your child, your family and, most importantly, yourself.
We provide unique learning experiences and a community of support focused on mastering the often heart-warming yet sometimes frustrating experience of being a 21st Century parent.
Welcome to our web site, where you will learn more about our brain-based learning programs–the Journey to New Parenthood, our monthly Master Classes, and our weekly Huddles™.
We are here to inspire you to address – in new and creative ways – the many challenges and rewards of the parent-child relationship.
Parenthood self-appraisal
Take our free parenthood self-appraisal now to assess your own approach to parenthood.