Raising Your Inner Child with Dr. Vanessa Lapointe - November 2023 Edition

Dr. Vanessa Lapointe is a mom, parenting educator, international speaker, and best-selling author of Discipline Without Damage and Parenting Right From The Start.

She is also an absolute favorite guest speaker within the K2 Elite Community - having shared her wisdom many times at our Mastermind events.?

Vanessa holds a doctoral degree in psychology, and practiced as a psychologist for nearly 20 years, before devoting her full-time energy to connecting with parents around the globe.?

She joined us for our Power to Connect-themed Mastermind and blew us away…

Here are the top takeaways from her presentation on consciously raising children:

Whether you are a parent or not, the most important area of study you could ever undertake if you want to make sense of who you are, live your best life, and show up to your most optimised potential is parenting.

Parenting helps us understand how the mind is formed and how it is we become who we become as well as helps us get to who we want to be.

We are all the ages that we have ever been.

You may be walking around in a 52-year-old body but you have a 2-year-old, 6-year-old 12-year-old, 19-year-old, and 30-year-old all living inside of you.

Parenting is not just about raising the children you have brought into the world but raising the children that exist in each and every one of us.

The biggest opportunity that children give us is the opportunity to step up and do the work to grow ourselves so that we can grow them.

So what does it take to raise a child?

1. Understand yourself

Look at the way you were parented as a child. Your environment forms your mind as a child and your mind shapes your environment as an adult.

It’s important to understand that through epigenetics ancestral trauma can be passed down from generation to generation.?

Do not blame your parents - they did the best they could with the information they had.

It’s up to you to change the story you run in your mind.?

You have the power to change your programming and end the cycle of trauma so that it does not pass on to the next generation.

2. Understand the needs of children

We often get so caught up in wanting to have “good” well-behaved children, we don’t realise we are squashing a child's natural development in the process.

For example, did you know children need to have meltdowns to be able to learn how to regulate emotions and that 4-year-olds don’t have the mental capacity to share?

But still, parents yell at their kids for these naturally occurring behaviors at that stage of their development.

Your job as a parent is to make the world feel safe for children.?

In order to do this you need to be equal parts FIRM (discipline, boundaries, consistency) and KIND (supportive, nurturing, setting the bar where they can jump).

A parent who swings too far on the firm side tends to be angry, a bully and expects too much whereas a parent who swings too far on the kind side tends to be spinless, passive, and easily overwhelmed.?

Both of these parenting types create a sense of unsafety in a child which leads to them feeling as though they cannot lean on their parent.

3. Do the work

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.?

Every time your kids or anyone for that matter drives you crazy - it’s not them that needs to do the work - it’s you!

It’s up to you to work through what feelings are coming up for you, to process your traumas, to look at your programming, and to change the lens through which you see the world.

Remember it’s likely your inner child feeling triggered from not having a need met, but you have the ability to meet that need now as an adult.

This is work that will never be completed. It’s ongoing day by day, thought by thought, and issue by issue.

But when we know better we do better.?

Your job when you fail is to fail better next time and each time you will show up as a better person.?

Love your children enough to make sense of your life and have the courage to observe and heal your own issues so your children don’t have to.

It’s hard and messy but it has the power to change the world with each generation being given a more conscious environment to thrive in.

It’s never too late to start parenting right (this includes parenting yourself).

Want more Vanessa content?

This month we kicked off the return of the Unstoppable podcast where Vanessa joined me in the studio to talk about doing the inner work to set your children up for a lifetime of happiness and fulfillment - check it out!

Want to learn how you can be a part of our K2 Elite Community and get exclusive insights from top industry thought leaders and influencers like Dr. Vanessa? Check out the link below:

https://kerwinr.ae/47cTMmJ

#WEDNESDAYWINS OF THE MONTH?

It's important to acknowledge and show appreciation towards your successes whether big or small. The more you appreciate your accomplishments the more your success will grow.?

That's why every Wednesday, our K2 Elites share a win they've had in their personal or business life with the community to be celebrated.

Here are some of the best #wedwins of the month.

If something struck a chord with you in this newsletter and you want to learn more about K2 Elite, I’d encourage you to book a time with one of my senior consultants to chat about K2 Elite.

?? Click the link below to get started!

https://kerwinr.ae/47cTMmJ

Or send me a message with "K2" and I'll send you some more information ??