When I tell people I’m a Conscious Connection Parenting Coach, I’m sometimes met with a surprised or blank look and then the inevitable question, “What’s conscious connected parenting?”

I’m so glad they ask.

Conscious connected parenting is a collaborative parenting style that incorporates conscious parenting and connected parenting to create a deep connection and understanding of yourself and your child.

This parenting style fosters a feeling of teamwork and peace within the family dynamic, helping you to navigate and even reduce meltdowns, power struggles, sibling conflict, and stressful situations in a more effective way.

When I started raising my twin grandsons with special needs in 2017, I’d never heard of conscious parenting, connected parenting, or any other types of parenting, positive or otherwise.

I based my parenting experience on how I was raised, with traditional parenting (aka authoritarian parenting).

I remember thinking as I raised my children that what I was doing wasn’t effective, but I didn’t know any other way. Maybe you can relate?

Fast forward to 2017, and I began raising my grandsons full time, who were highly emotional, dysregulated, and undiagnosed at the time. Traditional parenting was NOT working. At all.

It was too much dealing with the meltdowns.

The high emotions were triggering me into crying jags and causing complex PTSD.

I was at the end of my rope.

I researched everything imaginable about handling meltdowns, triggers, high emotions, and the various special needs once we had formal diagnoses.

They range from Autism Spectrum Disorder and Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder to Severe ADHD, Tourette’s Syndrome, Sensory Processing Disorder, anxiety, and depression.

After diving into my research, I discovered many parenting types such as positive parenting, gentle parenting, conscious parenting, connected parenting, etc. all fell under the umbrella of Collaborative Parenting.

Why choose Conscious Connected Parenting?

One of the things I love about collaborative parenting vs. punitive parenting is that it’s not you against your child exerting control and using fear to get desired results. It’s about working together as a team against a problem and so much more.

As I began to apply different collaborative parenting styles to our situation, I realized something important. All kids deserve love, respect, compassion, empathy, and understanding, not just children with special needs or behavioral issues.

This collaborative parenting style effectively produces thriving relationships with your children and a more peaceful home life versus traditional, authoritarian parenting styles.

As parents, we often think we have to “pick our battles,” or it’s “us against them,” reverting unwittingly to fear, control, and manipulation to get the desired outcome we want.

In reality, authoritative parenting creates a more profound division and disconnect and leads to frustration, misunderstandings, resentment, challenging behaviors, and worn-out parents. The short term results of authoritative parenting have long-term adverse effects.

“I was spanked/yelled at/punished, and I turned out fine.”

Honest question here: Did you?

Think back over your childhood and your adult life.

Think about how you felt when you were harshly punished and even spanked.

Think about how you felt or what you carried into adulthood that still triggers you to this day.

I’m going to venture to guess you can recall feelings of being misunderstood, not heard, not validated, not allowed to feel angry, cry, or be sad.

Maybe you felt controlled? Or spanked for everything you did “wrong” without ever being shown what to do, right?

Studies show that many children raised with authoritarian (punitive) style parenting become angry, defiant, depressed, and anxious. They carry those feelings and emotions into adulthood, leading to record numbers of mental health issues and dysfunctional work and personal relationships.

A day at the office, at a family function, or a quick look at the news and social media tells you all you need to know about those statistics.

All Behavior is Communication

Often, we focus on the behavior and want it to stop or change quickly. Let’s face it, whining, crying, and defiance can be annoying and challenging to handle, especially if you’re stressed, sensitive to noise, or struggle with mental or neurological health issues yourself.

What we don’t often realize is there is an unmet need behind the challenging behaviors. It’s a form of communication, and we need to learn how to speak the language.

As parents often do, we try to quickly shut it down by either pacifying the child or saying things like “stop crying,” “what are you crying about?” “it’s not that big of a deal,” and other such dismissive and damaging phrases.

These responses don’t acknowledge the child’s feelings. Whether we agree with their emotions or not doesn’t matter. Like you, they are still worthy of validation and deserve recognition.

When children aren’t validated and don’t feel heard, they learn to keep their feelings bottled up. Eventually, they come out in various ways ranging from anger and defiance to anxiety and depression.

We also do the same and often put our needs aside, especially in difficult situations such as raising special needs children, multiples, fostered/adopted, or grandchildren.

Resentment and anger continue to build within ourselves. We struggle with grief in various ways and begin to feel victimized by the child in our care or the situation we’re facing.

What happens when our children and we are bottling up these unacknowledged and unaccepted feelings?

We explode again and again and again. And we keep repeating the cycle day in and day out, without reprieve.

We also handle our children’s challenging behaviors with yelling, punishments, consequences, time outs, and sometimes even spanking. We’re left feeling guilt and shame because we think deep down there has to be a better way, but we don’t know where to start finding a better way.

And sometimes, parents don’t feel guilt. They think harsh punishment is discipline.

Discipline or Punishment?

It’s important to understand our children are human, too, with the same feelings and emotions as adults. The difference is, our brains are (typically) fully developed by age 23-24.

So, if your child is much younger or even in the late teens and early 20s stage of life, it’s essential to educate yourself on their development to know how to approach each situation.

And what exactly does discipline mean?

When asked, most people say it means to punish, spank, use timeouts, and harsh punishments. The reality is that the word discipline means “to teach.” We are their guide and coach, not their overly controlling taskmaster.

I love this quote from L.R. Knost, who sums it up perfectly,

“Discipline is helping a child solve a problem. Punishment is making a child suffer for having a problem. To raise problem solvers, focus on solutions not retribution.”

A different perspective

Think about it, when you get mad, what is your instinct? To slam doors or slam things around, maybe even throw something, scream or yell?

How do you feel when you realize a loved one witnessed that behavior or were the recipient?

Do you feel remorse, guilt, or shame? Maybe even embarrassed? Upset that you might have messed up too much, and now your spouse might leave, or your friend no longer wants to be your friend?

Or, maybe you need to be left alone to work through your anger and process your emotions?

Guess what? Our kids feel the same way!

Yet, we expect them never to get angry, never cry, never feel sad, or show any big emotions.

We have the chance now to change our relationship with ourselves and our children, to break the cycle, to allow ourselves and our children to be free to feel.

How do we embrace conscious connected parenting and put it into practice?

The truth is, the first step towards collaborative parenting is first to figure out your triggers. Work on healing and changing yourself before you can ever hope for your child to change. We’re the model by which they live.

Have you ever noticed when you’re anxious, sad, or angry, your kids tend to be the same way? Or at least act out more or seem more clingy? They pick up on our energy. They look to us as examples and compasses in which direction they need to go.

I say this not to guilt anyone or judge anyone. I have been there, and I still have my days when I’m not at my best as a parent.

Conscious connected parenting isn’t about perfection. It’s about awareness, connection, teamwork, and progress.

Before we can ever expect our children’s behavior to change, we must recognize what and why we react to specific triggers. We also need to let go of limiting beliefs and shift our mindset to accept ourselves, our feelings, and reactions.

As that happens, we naturally begin to do the same for our children. We allow them the space to feel what they feel and be themselves, not extensions of ourselves.

Like us, our children desire to feel heard, acknowledged, and understood.

Like us, our children want to be allowed to be themselves.

And like us, they need to feel loved and be loved.

Regardless of how they act, our children deserve to know their parents and caregivers love them not because of how they are, but despite their actions, with conscious awareness, connection, and unconditional love.

Dawn-Renée Rice is a writer, speaker, and parenting coach living in the great state of Texas with her husband of 20-plus years. They have three children and six grandchildren. Together they’re raising their twin grandsons with special needs. To book an introductory Discovery Session, Me-Time Mapping Session, or a What’s Next Roadmapping Session, click here.