My story started over 12 years ago when I decided to listen to that little voice in my head that was telling me I needed to start taking care of myself. I needed to focus more of my energy on becoming a better dad but also a better person. I made a choice to raise my 3 children peacefully and wanted to learn as much as I could about giving them the greatest chance at having a happy and healthy life. In an attempt to help prevent my children from experiencing all the dysfunction and pain I was seeing in the world I knew I needed to start with basic principles like no hitting, no spanking, and no punishing. This was not a common parenting method at the time and I really did not understand why so many people were not embracing and implementing these positive ideas into their families.
As I started my journey and started reading books, articles, and listening to podcasts on peaceful parenting I knew this was the path that I needed to go down. I learned many valuable lessons and one of the most important was actually not about being a father or parent but more about loving and accepting myself. When I learned to empathize with myself as a child, I now had the capabilities to understand what my kids were going through when they were misbehaving or not being present with me. I gained this power that allowed me to work on myself and focus on improving me so that I can help and be available with my kids.
“So while you can’t control your children, you can control someone who has a tremendous influence on how your children relate to each other. You.”
― Laura Markham
Lead by example is a saying often used and sounds like common sense but is very difficult to follow. I see many men not taking care of themselves in regards to their health and diet these days. If you are to be strong enough to take care of your family, spouse, and kids you must start with yourself on every level. You must love yourself enough to be healthy, to go to the gym, to exercise, to eat good foods, and to make this a priority in your life. If we do not raise our kids peacefully with love it is a clear indication of how we see ourselves.
My purpose of this blog will be to share my journey and progress on how I raised my standards in myself which ultimately led to me raising my standards with my children and within my family. I have experienced first hand the power in repairing parent and child relationships through connection, love, kindness, patience, and negotiations. I have had many uncomfortable discussions about how kids these days are spoiled, entitled, and have no respect for their parents and how
being weak or soft as a parent is the cause of this. I find it hard to believe that the smallest and most vulnerable people in society would not benefit by being treated the exact way we would want others to treat us. The challenge is do we love ourselves enough to create the change?
