Spiritual Parenting - Part 1- Dangerous Expectations

Post From: http://www.ambaraypublishing.co.uk/my-blog/spiritual-parenting-part-1-dangerous-expectations/

Below are quotations from Chopra’s book on Spiritual Parenting:

“We always remembered that our children were gifts from the Universe, and we let them know that we felt this way… ”

“We let them know how privileged and honoured we felt to help raise them. We felt as though we didn’t own or possess them…”

“We didn’t project our own expectations on to them…”

“We didn’t feel the need to compare them - for good or bad with anyone else.”

“This was our way of making them feel complete within themselves…”

Wow, what a handful of things to think about in terms of our own parenting styles and techniques. Perhaps it’s even a little uncomfortable to read such things because it makes us painfully aware of the things that we are ‘not doing’.

But the beauty of Chopra’s analysis does not concern - doing anything - at all.

On a deeper level, his words are about attempting to bring about an entire shift in mental, emotional thoughts and attitudes, that we as parents have, rather than drastically changing our actions . Only then can we be at some kind of peace with the most difficult job of all.

From my own understanding of Deepak Chopra; I firmly believe his words are not written to highlight the inadequacies of our parenting – they are merely asking us to make a shift in our everyday inter-cranial dialogues!

I was listening to a Pakistani Radio programme today on the importance of fathers in the family. Fathers, within South East Asian Families all over the world are often patriarchal, authoritative figures. The programme expressed the importance of having peaceful, communicative familial relationships and the point was made that Asian fathers often remain considerably aloof from their children – often resulting in negative relationships being carried in to adulthood. These relationships may well lead to other emotional problems in later life.

In my own life, I have witnessed this in almost every Asian family I have ever come in to contact with. Within British Asian families (and I am sure the same could be said in the US) there seems to be a disturbing need to ‘stamp our marks’ on our children.

Western Asian children often grow up with the notions that life decisions about occupations, marital partners, homes etc should be done in consultation with parents. There is a feeling that as children we must ‘please’ our parents and that we ‘owe’ them something for bringing us up.

These traditional ideas of obligation are often perpetuated by the idealism of Eastern notions that we ‘look after’ our elderly and respect them. In fact in Indian Soaps (there are hundreds) we are reminded of the value in archaic traditions.

One example may be the importance of the Indian Bahu (with her blood red vermillion and traditional garb) sacrificing all, to be accepted in to her husband’s family. People seem to applaud the archetypal daughter who massacres her desires to make her parents happy; they almost salute the sons who shun their controlling wives to put their domineering parents first.

Where on earth did we go wrong? The Indian and Pakistani media is a cultural tool and it is still flying in the face of spirituality. It is forgetting the true importance of our individual journey and how supremely important it is to achieve our ‘own’ dreams.

Off course our parents are extremely important. As many Eastern religions purport: parents are akin to Godliness. That I am not denying – because as parents we hold an awful lot of power over our children and this must be utilised wisely – or our children will not be able to fulfil their potentiality.

Spiritual Parenting- Some Reflections

From: http://www.ambaraypublishing.co.uk/my-blog/spiritual-parenting-some-reflections/

I think I am on a bit of a roll here because, all of a sudden, I feel I have found teachings on parenting that resonate with my deepening feelings of spirituality. In all honesty I was going to overlook Chopra and his Spiritual Guide to Parenting. I felt that people would misunderstand my frequent reference to Chopra as reflective of Hindu Philospohy. But he is a superstar in his own right; and revered globally!

However Chopra transcends religion in his writing. I say this with conviction – these posts are applicable to parents all over the world and to those that belong to any faith.

Rhonda Byrne’s best seller: The Secret; teaches us (in a very simplistic and effective way) about the law of attraction in our lives, with the premise that the world has a divine creator. This is what Chopra does and thus his work is open to any person who believes in some kind of ‘higher’ force or ‘spiritual being’. In fact, it could be argued, that his philospohical musings can be enjoyed by those with no such hankerings. Obviously there is a plethora of other books on this topic that people may also find useful.

The other real issue that I had before embarking on these animated discussions about Spiritual Parenting; was the fact that ‘spirituality’ on any level in our Western World is frequesntly shunned. We live in a secular world where discussions about faith, spirit, God or divinity are treated with abhorrence or indeed it is perceived to be in the domain of those with serious psychological disorders!

In fact religiosity after 9/11 is synonymous with terrorism. I hope those of you who believe that there might be something to an alternative (and firmly from a non- religious) perspective on parenting than the conventional Super Nanny dialogues that we are so used to; will find my musings on these topics interesting.

Spiritual Parenting - Punishment Doesn't Work

Dr Deepak Chopra says on more than one occasion that he brought up his children without reprimanding or punishing them:

“We never felt the need to punish them, although we let our children know very honestly when we were disappointed, angry or hurt. This was our way of teaching of teaching by reflection instead of rules.”

On reading this quote it becomes difficult to fathom how one is to bring up children in this way especially if routine and discipline have been an integral part of one’s parenting style for years.
I myself am a fan of Gina Ford, and if you are at all familiar with her advice and thoughts on rules and routine you will realise how defined her views are on early parenting.

I have to say that on first reading of this statement I sat open mouthed at the prospect of doing away with the ‘sad cloud’ (a friendly word for the naughty step!) I simultaneously broke in to a cold sweat at merely contemplating not being able to threaten my son with withholding his Power Rangers the next time he decided to flagrantly disregard my precious rules.

How could you bring up a child in this hippy way? Surely children need to be aware of their boundaries and what constitutes appropriate behaviour?

Read about the outcome: http://www.ambaraypublishing.co.uk/my-blog/spiritual-parenting-punishment-doesnt-work/

Spiritual Parenting - Say NO to Conventional Success

Last week I brought Deepak Chopra’s best selling work; ‘The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success’ - a search on http://www.amazon.co.uk/ revealed that he also had a book on Spiritual Parenting called: “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success for Parents”. I thought that this work would be particularly pertinent given my website (http://www.ambaraypublishing.co.uk/), my role as a Lecturer and above all the responsibility I have as a parent.

The book is not really religious: it is just a soulful insight in to the difficult job of parenting. It includes a wholly alternative way of looking at parenting to the super-nanny form of parenting that has become so popular – especially in the UK.

There were certain suggestions that touched me and I thought I would just briefly outline, I will start with what I believe to be one of his most important suggestions:

Try to digest this suggestion: ‘Put no pressure on them to achieve conventional success. This can be your way of telling them it is them that they are being cherished for who they are and not what you necessarily want them to become.’

Read the rest of this article on:

www.ambaraypublishing.co.uk/my-blog/spiritual-parenting-say-no-to-conventional-success/

Save the Punjabi Language

A report prepared by Unesco in 2008 stated that the Punjabi language will disappear from the world in 50 years. Now I don't know the accuracy of this report, however I am aware of second and third generation NRI parents who are struggling to ensure that their British Punjabi offspring have an adequate grasp of the Punjabi language that they themselves grew up with.

I myself am struggling to impart the language and cultural nuances of Punjabi to my son. I have therefore extended my writings and interests to cover the area of bilingualism and how this in particular it is effecting the Punjabi community outside of the Panjab.

Language is the only way to retain a culture and as parents we must endeavour to do our very best.

The UNESCO report said the following about language and it's acquisition :


"A language is in danger when its speakers cease to use it, use it in an increasingly reduced number of communicative domains, and cease to pass it on from one generation to the next. That is, there are no new speakers, adults or children."


"Even languages with many thousands of speakers are no longer being acquired by children; at least 50% of the world’s more than six thousand languages are losing speakers. We estimate that, in most world regions, about 90% of the languages may be replaced by dominant languages by the end of the 21st century."


And so - without being condescending in any way - the future of a language is entirely dependant on parents making the time; and putting in the necessary effort required to ensure that a child learns a second language. In this case this would be Punjabi.


For NRI parents this is not as easy as it looks. Punjabi is entirely a second language in the United Kingdom and America. English is the host language and often young children and indeed their parents are confined to making use of their ancestral language only in the home or in the local Punjabi community. With increasingly busy lives and kinship networks becoming disparate, the opportunity to acquire ones 'mother tongue' is becoming very difficult.

I believe it's dilution is apparent in second generation immigrants but it is undeniable in the third and further generation of settlers in the west.


We are firmly in the 21st century and living in an era where International boundaries between states are becoming increasingly diluted and the need to communicate in a universal way is crucial to the success of the world economy.


According to Gobind Thukral (South Asia Post, 64th Edition, May 15 2008) "There are more native speakers of Chinese across the globe, but English is the global language. Initially it was military barracks that forced an imperialist language on the people. English, French and Persian are some examples. Now the emergence of English as the global language has been for other critical factors; commerce, industry, technology, media, communication, the Internet, the arts, cinema and popular music. "


Thus English is the 'order' of the day and many parents - especially in the west - may not be overly concerned that their children do not know Punjabi. It is easy to feel smug that their children are thoroughly westernised and can assimilate fully within this society in a way that 1st generation settlers in the West were never able to do. However Western Punjabi children are missing out on a vital part of their native history and roots, which they may wish to have ties with, or show some affiliation to, later on in their lives and careers. To give children a 'choice' is the greatest gift a parent can give their children.


In another post I will be outlining the tremendous academic benefits of a bilingual lifestyle and how such a lifestyle choice can be of tremendous benefit to children. I think that this does need to be covered as there can be an inherant snobbery displayed by some second and third generation Asians towards Ethnic Minority languages.