What are you afraid of?

Parenting from a place of fear is very common so when it comes to my parenting decisions, I often ask myself, “What am I afraid of?” A lot of times we don’t even realise that we are being driven to action by fear; fear of what might happen in the future, fear of what happened in the past, fear of the unknown. Whilst I know it is difficult not to let our fears determine how we parent, I also know that it ALWAYS leads to the exact opposite outcome to what we want. For instance, our fear of our child ‘not turning out right’, causes us to be too strict, intolerant and inflexible. Fear of ‘what others will say’, stops us from speaking up or just being there for our children when they need us. Fear of what society expects, causes us to push our children in directions that are contrary to their authentic selves. Fear of failure causes us to over-protect, which impacts their resilience. Fear of taking risks prevents them from reaching their full potential. Fear of a harsh world causes us to focus on ‘toughening’ our children up by being hard on them. The list goes on… We need to recognise that our fear usually comes from our own childhood experiences, and so we end up repeating patterns that we know we need to break. The opposite of fear is Love ❤️. Love is the only thing that counters fear and produces the outcomes that we actually want for our children. When we parent from a place of true love, it never fails. Sometimes we think that it is our love for our children that causes us to make the decisions we make, when in actual fact it is our fear of the outcome that is driving us. It doesn’t mean we don’t love our children, but we are allowing our fear to dominate, so in the end it is not love that impacts our decision but fear. So the question is not “do you love your child?” It is “what are you afraid of?” Because that thing you fear, if not dealt with, will guide your decisions and produce unloving reactions from you to your child. Even though we love our children, they end up feeling unloved when we parent from a place of fear! Remember, Perfect Love Casts out Fear! The fourth module of the Raising Authentic and Resilient Children course is dedicated to understanding what love truly is. I help you become aware of when fear is driving your decisions and how to counter that with love. We discuss how you were loved as a child, the meaning of love and the problem with love languages. The journal includes a Love Tracker where you can keep track of intentional acts of love you show to your child in order to form the right habit. If you would like to understand the true impact of decisions taken out of fear and how to eliminate this fear in your own life, book a FREE clarity call with me.