1. A Real Person Like Myself 1
You Are Raising a Spirit Throbbing with Its Own Signature 2
Parenting Unconsciously Is Where We All Begin 4
To Connect with Your Children, First Connect with Yourself 6
You Can Build a Feeling of Kinship in Your Family 9
How Consciousness Changes How We Parent 10
2. The Spiritual Reason We Birth Our Children 13
How Can a Child Awaken an Adult? 15
How Conscious Parenting Is Learned 19
A Conscious Parent Doesn't Emerge Overnight 21
3. Release Your Children From the Need for Your Approval 25
Acceptance Is Key 28
There's Nothing Passive About Acceptance 30
Don't Parent with a Cookie-Cutter Approach 31
You Will Only Accept Your Child to the Degree You Accept Yourself 35
4. A Blow to Our Ego 39
How Does Ego Function? 40
The Ego of Image 43
The Ego of Perfection 44
The Ego of Status 47
The Ego of Conformity 48
The Ego of Being "In Control" 50
You Can Transition Out of Ego 53
5. Is Your Child Growing You Up? 56
Face Up to Your Reactivity 58
Discover Your Emotional Inheritance 61
How Can You Integrate Your Pain? 64
How to Handle Your Child's Pain 65
Take One Step at a Time 68
What It Takes to Tame Your Anxiety 74
6. Life Is Wise 77
Life Itself Teaches Us 78
Is It Possible to Trust Life? 80
Your Child Doesn't Need to Earn Your Trust 81
How You Draw Many of Your Circumstances to You 83
You Can Break Free of Your Unconsciousness 86
It's All in the Interpretation We Give it 89
7. The Challenge of a Lifetime 95
Infancy and the "Terrible Two's"
The Lessons of Infancy for the Parent 96
A Journey of Self-discovery 98
A Chance to Recover Your Rhythm 100
Toddlerhood: A Planet All Its Own 102
Toddlerhood Is the Time to Sow the Seeds of Containment 105
8. From Center Stage to Supportiang Cast 109
A Parent's Opportunity for Spiritual
Growth in the School Years
Middle School: the Challenge of "Being There" for Our Children 110
High School: the Need for Unequivocal Acceptance 113
Why It's Important to Resist the Temptation to Control 115
9. The Insanity of Parenthood 117
The Particular Role of the Mother 118
Raising a Child Is an Invitation to Surrender to a Different Pace 122
10. Parent From Wholeness Instead of Your Wounds 125
If You Grew Up Feeling You Weren't Good Enough 127
If You Learned to Please Others to Earn Their Approval 130
Were You Unable to Be Yourself? 134
"Bad" Behavior Is Really a Search for Our Inherent Goodness 137
Your Brokenness Doesn't Reflect Your True Being 139
11. A Household Built on Being 141
Are You Aware that Anxiety Is a Form of "Doing?" 144
What's the Source of Our Fear of the Present? 147
Beyond Living by "Doing" 149
The Moment Is Now 151
12. The Wonder of the Ordinary 155
Do You Revel In Your Child's Ordinariness? 156
The Fallacy of the Overproduction of Life 158
Surrender the Urgency to "Do" 161
Back to Basics 162
A Life that Mirrors Who Your Child Is 165
13. Shelve Those Great Expectations 167
Honor Who Your Child Is 168
How to Set the Bar for Your Child 169
What Can You Realistically Expect of Your Child? 172
Focus on the Process, Not the Outcome 174
Use the Right Kind of Praise 178
Realize that Your Children Imitate You 179
14. Create a Conscious Space In Your Child's Life 183
Allow Room for Stillness in Your Child's Schedule 184
Create a Meaningful Narrative for Your Child 186
Why Expressing Gratitude to Your Child Is a Powerful Parenting Tool 188
15. Connect to Your Child with Engaged Presence 193
How We Undermine Our Attempts to Connect with Our Children 195
Do You Validate Your Children's Behavior, or Their Being? 197
Just Be There 200
16. How to Handle Your Child's Mistakes 205
Do You Really Know Why They Did What They Did? 206
How You Can Transform Mistakes into Spiritual Gold 208
Celebrate Your Child's Mistakes 210
17. The Two Wings of the Eagle 213
A Child Can't Soar Without Containment 214
The Spiritual Approach to Discipline 218
Don't Avoid Conflict-Value It 221
How to Discipline in a Manner that Works 223
The Rule about Rules 226
Why Teaching Is More Effective Than Punishment 229
Acting Out Reflects Unmet Emotional Needs 232
Do You Own Your Part in Your Children's Behavior? 234
Why Delightful Children Turn into Defiant Teens 238
Heavy-handed Tactics Backfire 241
How to Execute the "No" 245
Timing Is Crucial 249
Afterword
Understanding Our Shared Unconsciousness 253
We're All in This Together 254
Becoming a Parent Who Is Present 256
Appendix
The Consciousness Compass 259
Questions to Ask Ourselves
Some Highlights From the Conscious Parent 263