What is Mindful Parenting?

Mindful Parenting was developed by Hunter Clarke-Fields, my mentor, author of the books Raising Good Humans and Raising Good Humans Everyday (plus a workbook by the same name!), and host of the Mindful Parenting podcast.

In Mindful Parenting, we work on both (1) cultivating awareness and calm within, and (2) developing our skills for communicating with our child. We do the first primarily through mindfulness and meditation, and that helps us with the second—although there are still some mindsets to shift and skills to learn to improve our communication.

Mindful Parenting was a game-changer for me. Before I found it, I struggled with emotional regulation, and I felt a lot of shame around that. I thought that “good enough parenting” was just accepting failure because I should be able to be better. And I thought that I was a failure at meditation because I “couldn’t” meditate for 20 minutes a day twice a day.

Through reading Raising Good Humans and attending a book club discussion with Hunter, I came to see meditating for five minutes most days as a victory and not a reason to feel shame or like a failure. I started to understand self-compassion and what it really meant when people said, “you don’t do better by feeling worse.” And my meditation practice served as an opening to “new age” ideas such as embodiment and somatics that have further deepened my parenting practice and strengthened my relationship with my children.

If you live in Seattle and would like to transform your life with mindfulness, meditation, and skillful communication, I offer the Mindful Parenting course approximately once per year. If you don’t, I weave Mindful Parenting into my parent coaching, and you can find more Mindful Parenting course offerings (including virtual ones!) at the Mindful Mama Mentor website.