Heal Alongside Them: How Parents Can Join Their Child’s Journey to Wellness
As parents, we focus on our children and how to help them. Much of the “terrain” and “environment” in which these issues developed from and/or persist are also the places that parents reside. Join your children in their healing journey. Acknowledge your inner and outer health and seek healing for yourself with them. Kids will unconsciously respond to your nervous system.
Suggestions…
Meal Time
Cultivate a ritual around cooking and preparing food. Tell your kiddos (and yourselves), that this is valuable nourishment from the Earth that supports our healing, growth, and vitality. Gratitude for the nourishment we receive daily is a beautiful practice. Welcome them in. Allow time to shop for food together. Ask them to choose the apples or fruits that look good to them. Allow them to find recipes that they may be interested in, and collaborate together. Preparing and smelling our food being cooked is a vital part of beginning our digestion and optimizing the physiology of our magnificent bodies.
Bath Time
Whether it be a shower or a bath, allow your kiddos to feel the beauty of the water bathing over them. Make it a place to wash away all the things of the day that don’t serve them, and all that should not be held in our systems. Create a weekly spa day where, for example, every Wednesday, they can bathe with a bath bomb, Epsom salt, and essential oils. This allows them to slow down, smell the beautiful smells, and rest in the water. At minimum, fifteen minutes is needed. For some kids who are having a harder week, baths with Epsom salt can be used more often.
Tea Time
Some nights may call for a cup of tea. Explore different teas and create a ritual for settling down and welcoming the “luna time” (as I call it in my home) into our evening, allowing the moon to bring us sleep and dreams. Tea is a great ritual to have. We turn on the teapot and wait for the water to boil as we choose which tea we need in this moment. Chamomile with some honey is wonderful or a turmeric latte is an alternative option. When we travel, it is great to have this tradition to help the system settle down and find its inner peace before bed wherever we may be in the world.
Stretching Time
Instead of lounging around the TV room watching shows or movies, we can create a different ritual in the living room. We dim the lights and allow time to hang and stretch on the floor and feel what our bodies’ needs are in the moment. We allow big stretches, as if we were just waking up. We welcome yawns and yawns and yawns. We laugh and breathe and move around the floor in yoga-like movements. It’s unorchestrated, but rather flows in movements requested by the body. Allow them to tune in to their bodies. If all they need to do is lie flat, then that is enough. That is perfect.
Nature Walks or walks around the neighborhood (or just sitting in the backyard)
What a wonderful opportunity to allow one to notice the sky, the sun setting or the moon shining, the colors of the sky, the sweat on your skin, the trees and plants around you. To take our minds out of the daily troubles and tasks at hand and notice something beautiful and rich. Something bigger than ourselves. Allow the mind, body, and spirit to be with nature, to remember its own remarkable natural physiology. Allow yourselves to resonate with nature, the very thing that we are. We are not separate from it. I almost crave being sweaty outdoors to end the day, to come home to a healing shower and bring the night sky into my dreams.
Some of these suggestions may be too much for the busy, hectic workweek. It is a piece of the healing puzzle. Notice what rituals you already have in place in your home, and honor their value and importance. These rituals and practices help our children (as well as ourselves) learn self-care. To come into the home, slow down, and rest. To reflect on the day. To understand what they need that day. To allow their needs to be the fulcrum of how they live. Cultivating and living in this restorative and daily dance is one of the greatest gifts we can give our children to learn self-care, to tune in, and to rest.
