5 Easy Tips for Mindful Parenting

KAJAL GUPTA shares her experience of first-time parenting, and how it has opened her awareness and helped her grow.

- KAJAL GUPTA

To me, mindfulness is tuning in and being aware of my present thoughts, feelings, and emotions (or lack of ) without any judgment. It is being in the “here and now.” I’ve been practicing meditation for many years now, so going inward has become a way of life for me. With this in mind, I enthusiastically embarked upon motherhood feeling that I had it all together. How naïve was I, because as Dr. Shefali Tsabary puts it, “letting go of control over our children is probably the hardest spiritual task we face as parents.” As part of this ongoing journey, here are five tenets of mindful parenting I’ve picked up along the way, as something I not only relate to but also try to live by.

1 Truly know, understand, and experience your child as they really are, separate from you.

Yes, you can plan all you want – your child’s clothes, the nursery décor, whether you decide to breast- or bottlefeed, when to introduce solids, and your parenting style, too – but you can’t plan your child’s temperament. Each child is different; you’ll have to tailor your parenting style to meet your child’s needs and temperament. I decided to breastfeed for six months and then move to bottle-feeding, but my baby decided to enter my life as a milk snob, refusing all the bottles in the world. I decided to introduce solids at six months, but baby decided he was ready to taste his first fruit at 4.5 months. I got beautifully-crafted wooden toys, but baby was interested in all the overly colorful, loud, and ugly plastic ones! The point I’m trying to make is: tune into your child’s needs moment-to-moment instead of dumping your expectations on them.