Conscious Parenting

Anyone who cares for children needs to attend to the essential message of this book: that the first two years are the most crucial time in a child's education and development, and that children learn to be healthy and "whole" by living with healthy, whole adults. Conscious parenting, says author and child-advocate Lee Lozowick, includes love, affection and life-positive boundaries for our children, and requires honesty, generosity, compassion and common sense from parents and caregivers. Parental role-modeling is the most essential component, the author affirms, since we can't give our kids what we don't have ourselves. Lozowick invites parents and educators to examine areas of selfishness, ignorance and unconsciousness in their own lives, pointing out how these can jeopardize a child's well-being. While the book is not based in a sectarian religious philosophy, the author, a respected spiritual teacher, presents a strong case for making parenting a substantial part of one's spiritual practice throughout the childraising years. This is not your run-of-the-mill parenting book. Lee Lozowick decries the status quo of much contemporary thinking and practice about who children are and what they really need. His words have commonsense appeal, but offer no sweet consolation to those who are unwilling to make their parenting responsibilities a top priority in their lives. The book begins with a discussion of conscious conception and continues with a treatment of conscious pregnancy, birth and bonding. Lozowick, like so many other child advocates, stresses the importance of breastfeeding and keeping the infant "in arms" especially in the first two years of life. Giving children this optimal start is absolutely vital to their mental, emotional and physical health and well-being. Later chapters include such relevant topics as honesty in our communication with children; our use of language as the descriptor of reality; an holistic context of education and the homeschooling alternative; and play, emotions, and energy management. "Children are like sponges," Lozowick writes, "and what they pick up will influence how they grow up, which in turn will have effects on the world-at-large that we can't possibly imagine; one's relationship to children has an impact on many levels of existence. Conscious parenting, then, is not only about the welfare of an individual, but more about the well-being of the Earth."