Wild Mothering by Tami Lynn Kent (Book Excerpt)
Cultivating the Positive
In our family, our overall focus is to cultivate the positive by making time to play, connect, replenish, and have fun. Even chores or homework can be enjoyable when approached as opportunities to connect as a team. We also encourage each member of the family to identify their needs rather than remain stuck in a problem. For example, children are encouraged to brainstorm solutions to resolve a situation or meet their needs. Being creative for themselves is valued, and we might say, How do you think we can make this work?
To maintain a positive center, children need time for quiet play and inner nourishment. They require adequate rest and space from noise or electronics as well as clear breaks from their activities and hectic schedules. Make being outside a priority in order to tap into the replenishment of earth energies and fresh air. Take meals together and honor the seasons with family rituals in order to strengthen your bonds and assist children in aligning with natural rhythms.
A particularly useful book for incorporating positive guidance to instruct behavior is Taking Charge: Caring Discipline That Works at Home and at School by JoAnne Nordling. This book provides examples of challenging situations that every parent will recognize, with corresponding solutions that work. Nordling also suggests that feedback be 80 percent positive to 20 percent negative, or a ratio of four positive attentions to one negative attention. In applying the four-to-one ratio to my children, I noticed how often negative behaviors are called out while positive ones are unrecognized, not only for our children but for our partners. Positive feedback does not mean empty praise but, rather, descriptive words that show you are paying attention to what your child is doing. For example, “I noticed how you were throwing the ball with your brother and listening carefully to him. I like the way you set up a creative game together.” You increase what you pay attention to. Emphasizing the positive within the family will increase the positive energy for everyone.
Nordling stressed the power of paying attention to a child during neutral times, when a child is simply playing quietly. In this case, you pay attention with your quiet presence, a touch, or a nod. This positive attention during neutral times conveys a sense of unconditional love to the child; it shows that they are valued for who they are rather than what they do or how they behave. When a child feels secure in your love, particularly through how you connect with and relate to them on a routine basis, they are also more likely to be in a positive frame of mind themselves.
There are many ways to cultivate the positive: moving from a place of frustration to the infinite potential of solutions, shifting a closed heart to an open one, working with energy blocks to restore flow, and transforming disequilibrium to alignment in energy balance. One of the most positive things you can do for yourself as a mother is to release all mothering guilt or regret. There are times you will not meet your children’s needs or will even be hurtful toward your children, but your children are resilient and will recover. There are conflicts that will arise and events that cause pain. Address your areas of difficulty as a mother or any situations that have inflicted a wound for your child, but do so with compassion rather than guilt or regret. Guilt closes down your heart center and restricts the spirit energies that will come to your assistance in the presence of self-love. Regret keeps your energy in the past, with the challenge or wound, instead of in the present where the healing can occur.
Do your mothering practice while loving yourself and recognizing the imperfection of life and relationships. Not only will you enhance your skills, but you will also teach your children how to learn and grow in a model of compassion. Saying “I’m sorry” can be a positive action. Being able to say it ourselves to our children or partner not only facilitates the positive but also models life skills for making harmonious relationships and recovering from conflict. As my youngest said when he was planning to apologize to his brother, “My heart wants to say sorry, but my head doesn’t.” Being able to express regret and access compassion requires the sometimes uncomfortable shift from head to heart, but it feels so much better once the heart is leading the way.
In witnessing our children, we see ourselves illuminated, including the places we lost touch with when we were children. As we love and tend our children, the wounded aspects of our heart can be revealed and tended to as well. The very process of mothering can heal the mothering heart.
Excerpted Wild Mothering: Finding Power, Spirit, and Joy in Birth and a Creative Motherhood (Atria Books, May 7, 2024), by Tami Lynn Kent. Learn more at www.wildfeminine.com.
Tami Lynn Kent is a women’s health physical therapist, a TEDx speaker, and the founder of Holistic Pelvic Care,TM where she utilizes her ability to read energetic patterns of the body. Kent maintains a private practice and an international training program in Portland, Oregon. She has authored three previous books. Her latest, Wild Mothering: Finding Power, Spirit, and Joy in Birth and a Creative Motherhood (Atria Books, May 7, 2024), is a newly updated edition of her classic, Mothering from Your Center. Learn more at www.wildfeminine.com
