Goals Of Respectful Parenting.

Goals of Respectful Parenting:

1- Raise children who we have deep, soulful relationships with ALL our lives. According to extensive research, it is these parent-child relationships that lead to successful and fulfilling lives.

2- Raise children who have intrinsic motivation and don’t do anything for the purpose of outward gains (thus no punishments, rewards or empty praises).

3- Raise children who are kind, empathetic and community activists (because they’ve been treated kindly by us and considered an active part of our little community at home).

4- Raise children who are confident and recognize their strengths and go after them with a passion with little consideration for the status quo (by ignoring the rat race of “not being left behind” and recognizing what OUR child is good at and facilitating THAT).

5- Raise children who know how to establish healthy boundaries and respect others’ boundaries (by our own modeling of our own boundaries and by respecting our kids’ boundaries).

6- Raise children who have loving relationships with their siblings (by never putting our kids into positive and negative roles, by never taking sides and never comparing them to each other).

NOT Goals of Respectful Parenting:

1- Raise kids who are compliant and obedient all of the time.

2- Raise kids who are academically ahead of everyone else because it’s what all kids should be doing.

3- Raise kids who are involved in many after-school activities because those activities are popular and it’s what everyone is doing.

4- Raise kids who aim to please the adults in their lives (teachers, grandparents, aunts, uncles etc.)

5- Raise kids who behave perfectly at all times, everywhere.

6- Raise kids who never express any emotions in public.

7- Raise kids who never raise their voice against something that doesn’t make sense to them (even to “elders”, their parents and teachers).

8- Raise kids who follow the path we’ve carved out for them in life because don’t parents know best? (No, they don’t ;))

FINAL NOTE: Be prepared to be JUDGED, ridiculed and questioned constantly about your parenting path if you choose the respectful parenting path.

However, work hard NOT to judge those who are judging you.. they’re operating based on centuries of parenting practices that have only recently come into question by neuroscientists and psychologists.

We, in this community, are lucky to have found the latest research and science and learn it- our best bet is to incorporate what we learn in ALL our interactions so we can inspire others through our empathy and open-mindedness 💜