What's good for baby IS good for mama!!

Look up gentle parenting, you can find an endless wealth of wonderful information about the amazing benefits for the children. They're smart, kind, bright, secure, loving, independent, generous. The list goes on, there is no doubt that children raised consciously and gently are extremely well rounded on many different levels. But what about us? How do parents fare when parenting with purpose? Well, for lack of a better way to phrase it, we are freaking AMAZING. Seriously. I'll start here, I am NOT perfect, nowhere even in the ballpark. But when we started our parenting journey 8 years ago, we had a plan, breastfeeding, no spanking, no sleep training, that was about it. I didn't know there was a title for it, that was mostly how I was raised, so that was important to me. Then we had Evan 16.5 months later, yep, I had my days. By the time they were both toddlers, I had LOTS of "those" days. There were times I wanted to yell, there were times I did. There were even times (many of them) I was so frustrated that I thought to myself, "IF I were a spanker, THIS would be that time". But I didn't. I was forced to find another way. I was forced to think outside the box. Whether is was whispering just so they would have to calm down and listen to hear or taking a mommy time out, I had to find a better way, a way that didn't harm. The inside of your head is a scary place, but when you have to think instead of resorting to a primal anger and lashing out, you're forced to grow by thinking of new ways! Spanking is the equivalent of an angry toddler lashing out because they don't have the words to express the frustration they feel. So when we fight the urge to hit, its our brain saying "use your words!!" and you invent new ways to cope, new ways to understand and communicate. It makes us more patient with our kids, our spouses, our annoying coworkers, or the jackhole behind us in traffic. Am I saying it makes us better than other parents? Obviously not, what I'm saying is that it FORCES us to grow. Nor am I saying that those who do not practice or were not raised by gentle parenting are a failure. I'm saying that for me, I'm more patient, kinder, more tolerant, yet I STILL have my moments and always will, we all will, being human is a challenge! But when we parent with our hearts and with purpose rather than reactions and lashing out, we grow more conscientious children. And those children grow enlightened parents.