The Circle of Life -- The Zodiac Signs and the New Moon's Journey
By
Rebecca Brents

You arrived in
this life with

Karmic gifts and talents

Karmic responsibilities

Karmic challenges

Karmic work to do

Order a
Karma and Destiny
reading

Learn what life is
asking of you.

Our Premium Members get

Readings ~ Classes

Lectures ~ Articles

Ezines ~ Oracles

And More!!

For people who take
their lives seriously.

Join our
Premium Membership
TODAY!!

Today Matters : 12 Daily Practices to Guarantee Tomorrow's Success
By
John C. Maxwell

Cut through the confusion.

See clearly

Think better

Make informed choices

Discover why the Tarot has intrigued, informed, and interested spiritual seekers for centuries.

What is your life''s biggest question?

Get a reading on Your Situation

Join our
Astrology and Tarot
Premium Membership
TODAY!!

	The Courage To Be A Loving Parent by Margaret Paul, Ph.D. Inner Bonding
Astrology, Tarot, and Self Improvement for the New Age.

    Email This Page to a Friend    

The Courage To Be A Loving Parent
by Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

Most of us really don't like it when someone is angry at us. We don't like it when people go into resistance to helping us when we need help, instead of caring about us. We don't like it when people withdraw from us, disconnecting from us and shutting us out.

We don't like it when people make demands on us and do not respect our right or need to say no. Many of us will do almost anything to avoid the soul loneliness and pain we feel when people treat us in angry, resistant, demanding and uncaring ways.

It takes great courage to stay loving to ourselves and others when faced with others' angry and closed behavior. It especially take courage when the people we are dealing with are our own children.

Yet unless we have the courage to come up against our children's anger, resistance, and withdrawal, we will give ourselves up and not take care of ourselves to avoid their uncaring reactions.

The more we deny our own truth and our own needs and feelings, the more our children will disrespect and discount us. Our children become a mirror of our own behavior, discounting us when we discount ourselves, disrespecting us when we disrespect ourselves.

The more we give ourselves up to avoid our children's unloving behavior toward us, the more we become objectified as the all-giving and loving parent who doesn't need anything for ourselves. When we do this, we are role-modeling being a caretaker.

On the other hand, it is unloving to ourselves and our children to expect our children to take responsibility for our well-being. It is unloving to demand that our children give themselves up to prove their love for us and to pacify our fears.

It is unloving to demand that they be the way we want them to be rather than who they are. It is unloving to set limits just to make us feel safe, rather than limits that support their health and safety. When we behave in this way, we are role-modeling being a taker.

The challenge of good parenting is to find the balanced between being there for our children and being there for ourselves, as well as the balance between freedom and responsibility - to be personally responsible to ourselves rather than be a taker or a caretaker.

Our decisions need to be based on what is in the highest good of our children as well as ourselves. If a child wants something that is not in our highest good to give, then it is not loving to give it. If we want something that is not in the highest good of our children, then it is not loving for us to expect it.

It is loving to support our children's freedom to choose what they want and to be themselves, as long as it doesn't mean giving ourselves up. Children do not learn responsible behavior toward others when their parents discount their own needs and feelings to support what their children want.

Our own freedom to choose what we want and to be ourselves needs to be just as important to us as our children's freedom and desires.

On the other hand, if we always put our needs before our children's, we are behaving in a self-centered, narcissistic way that limits our children's freedom. We are training our children to be caretakers, to give themselves up for other's needs and not consider their own.

The challenge of loving parenting is to role-model behavior that is personally responsible, rather than being a taker or caretaker. This is our best chance for bringing up personally responsible children. However, we need to remember that we can do everything "right" as a parent, but our children are on their own path, their own soul's journey.

They will make their own choices to be loving or unloving, responsible or irresponsible. We can influence their choices, but we can't control them. They have free will, just as we do, to choose who they want to be each moment of their lives.

All we can do is the very best we can to role-model loving, personally responsible behavior - behavior that supports our own and our children's highest good.

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?", "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By My Kids?", "Healing Your Aloneness","Inner Bonding", and "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By God?" Visit her web site for a FREE Inner Bonding course: Inner Bonding
or email: margaret@innerbonding.com

Are you looking for more information on Home, Family, Emotional Security, and Feelings?

Cancer is the astrology sign that deals specifically with Home, Family, Emotional Security, and Feelings. Learn more about Cancer.
The information here tells all about Cancer Astrology.

Cancer Horoscope

Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you're in control, they're in control.
~ Tom Landry ~
Born September 11, 1924

Please click on the titles to visit these fine areas of Enchanted Spirit

---

	PO Box 1080 Sandia Park · NM · 87047

Enchanted Spirit is a non-denominational spiritual center of healing, support, self-improvement, personal guidance, education and writing. We publish multi-media works of New Age thought and information to encourage serenity and growth in individual life choices, advance the universal search for life's meaning, and promote tolerance for positive ideas from all philosophies and religious traditions, believing as we do that truth is where you find it.

---

This site is hosted and maintained for Enchanted Spirit by

Catweasel Ink

Copyright © 1999 - 2008 by Enchanted Spirit and Catweasel Ink.
Contributed works copyright by their respective authors. All rights reserved.
Unauthorized reproduction specifically prohibited.

Last updated June 24th, 2004

Rebecca is not available
right now.


Please check back
later
CLICK HERE FOR
MORE INFO

Astrology is for Believers.

With Real Astrology as your compass, you can recognize what's right for you, work with your natural gifts and rhythms, understand the dynamics of your relationships, and take your place more easily in Life's natural flow.

Real Astrology ...
for people who take
their lives seriously.

Join our
Astrology and Tarot
Premium Membership
TODAY!!

Tired of insipid, canned astrology reports full of white space and mysterious jargon?

We specialize in useful, practical, plain English information ... and lots of it!!

The difference between real astrology and the "daily horoscope in the newspaper" will amaze you.

Join our
Astrology and Tarot
Premium Membership
TODAY!!

The Next Fifty Years: A Guide for Women at Mid-Life And Beyond
By
Pamela D. Blair