How Can I Get My Two-Year Old to Stop . . . ?

Children are influenced by three factors in parental consciousness: what the parents cherish, what they hate and what they fear. Therefore, healthy parenthood is impossible just on the basis of good intentions or self-sacrificing love. Parents can be loving, generous and devoted, and move heaven and earth for the sake of a child, but if they don’t understand these three elements in consciousness, they may be of little benefit.

Suppose a parent cherishes smoking cigarettes. We see that the children become interested in smoking, too. Suppose a parent doesn’t smoke in the house, in front of the children, having been advised not to do this. Will that solve the problem? It will not solve the problem, because health is not a matter of behavior. It is the cherishing of the idea that needs to be healed. In order to be healthy, we must cherish that which is existentially valid and we must be compassionate enough to be free of hate and certainly we must seek to be fearless. How can we become fearless? Isn’t the whole world scared? Is there a way to be fearless, especially if we read the newspapers, watch television and talk to our friends? It is possible to be fearless to a large extent. . .

 When we obtain the realization of spiritual love and come to treasure it, then there will be no problem with what we cherish, what we hate or fear.

-Marriage and Family Life: The Possibility of Frictionless Living

Metapsychiatry's approach to parenting is to see the child as an extension of parental consciousness. It is the parent that is disturbed by the child's behavior and it is the parent's reaction that the parent can learn from and transcend. This is not a path of a quick fix - it is the path of learning and growing as our children grow.  And as we learn and grow as parents, that is what our children will learn. And isn't this really what we most want? for our children to grow into happy, eager to learn, loving, contributing adults?