Parenting isn’t difficult or how about saying parenting is not about being easy or difficult, Parenting is all about Connection and Communication.

The day a newborn is born it knows exactly what to do; it can crawl on its own on the mom and feed itself. This is called as breast crawl indeed a natural instinct for survival. Babies often cry when they need to be picked up, soothed or fed. Toddlers learn by exploring nature on their own. Every behaviour of a child is a message to parents if we are ready to listen.

Parenting isn’t hard, but parenting in society is. The problem starts when we start receiving suggestions like don’t lift baby often else he may demand warmth and touch and the list may go on. Before we start communicating we go through suggestions and often piled up with it. Many times exploring nature and creativity of the child is labelled as mischievous and undisciplined behaviour. We often hear how awful our children will be or perhaps already are- when they don’t fit in societal expectations.

The ability to control emotions and behaviour isn’t fully developed until early adulthood. Why are we requiring preschoolers\children to do this and punishing them when they can’t. Research suggests most human brains take almost 25yrs to develop though these rates can vary among individuals. One key part of trajectory is the development of prefrontal cortex a significant part of the brain in terms of social interaction that can affect how we regulate emotions, control impulsive behaviour assess risk and make long term plans. It can take more than 25 yrs to reach maturity.

There is no such thing as a “bad kid” just angry, hurt, tired, scared, confused, impulsive ones, express their needs and feelings the only way they know-how. We owe it to them every single one of them to always remember that.-Dr. Jessica Stephens.

The relatively new science of epigenetic is proving that who we are is the culmination of the experiences in our lives and our ancestors which causes changes in how our genes operate. Modifications occur and genes can switch on or off depending on the environment. Though bad news is that trauma can be inherited, the good news is we can reverse it.

So what do we do? We need to change our expectations for our self, our child and our family. Observe, listen, understand and pause and then react when we ready to connect to our child even if there is a motive of Discipline. Love, affection, and connection is the answer to reversing the trauma. Finally, happiness is one thing which we can pass on to kids which takes care of our generations to come.

There is no perfect parenting or parenting doesn’t come with a manual. Parents are bound to do mistakes because they are humans too. We won’t break our children if we yell sometimes. They will learn from our mistakes and we will learn from theirs.

Finally Parenting is an ongoing process, communication, and connection which keeps getting strengthened with love connection and ability to problem solve things together.