Q&A: Handling Teenagers as a Reiki Parent

November 17, 2017 · by · in All Posts, Q&A, Suggested Reading

Are our moral values of any use at all? What we learned in childhood and followed all our lives seems obsolete today. Now a days people do everything and get into all kinds of relationships. Marriage is just a custom to show to the society. People pretend to be so cultured but they really do everything behind the curtains..I feel they act dual..for others they gossip but they do the same thing….I don’t know what is correct what is wrong?? As a parent of  teenager, what can we do? Is it right how relationships are now a days ??? 

You’ve asked the right question as a parent WHAT can we do because the child and the generation it is born in, are born with their stories and set of experiences. We did a whole lot that our parents didn’t approve of – and our children will do a whole lot that we will not approve of. As long as children are not ruining their lives by getting pregnant or losing a few years in studies because they’re too involved/ heart-broken in relationships, in the long run it is ok. Energetically it isn’t a great thing to have multiple sexual partners, but if the children are already born with multiple karmic ties then we can’t truly prevent that.

What you can do is lead by example and be there when your daughter needs someone to speak with. If you can try to be there for her, let her feel understood and cared for, if you don’t judge her and have faith in her, then your words will carry a lot of value. You forget that you’re the person that raised this child. She’s built on the value system you provided. Now it is time to let her fly the nest. She might wander, but if your upbringing was based in the foundation of love, she will come back sooner or later. If she feels judged on the other hand, you will probably lose her – either temporarily or permanently.

(Someone else): When kids hit their teens they forget everything they’ve learned from family. They want to uphold their image in front of their friends as- ‘modern’, ‘trendy’, ‘brave’, ‘decision maker’… They seek friends rather than time with parents. Of late this is becoming common thing in every family. TV programs and movies are main culprits.

My mom always used to tell me in my teenage – “You are a teenager now. I fear u won’t listen to me”.

Ashwita, I feel teenage is the most dangerous age group for parents. Decisions taken by kids will have impact on entire life. Why do kids easily get attracted to negative things and imitate them. Among positive and negative, why is negative is more attractive?

Sometimes I am afraid, once my child becomes a teenager, will he remember what we taught or will his friends have a greater impact on him?

I quite disagree. Teenage is simply the test. If your upbringing was unstable, it will explode in the teens, that’s all. If you’ve provided a strong foundation to your children by not being bothered about what others think, your children will not be bothered about peer pressure – teenage or not. But if that foundation was not laid, no amount of talking , coaxing, rationalizing or threatening is going to work.

If you have taught your child to decide through careful and rational thought, that is a habit which does not change. Your child will still act rationally and carefully as a teenager, although sometimes the line of thinking might not match with yours. But if your child was raised to depend on you, then the dependency simply shifts towards friends and suddenly they are the only influencing factor in your child’s life.

Negative is more attractive to teenagers because their parents have chosen negative every time they had a choice. When parents had a choice to respond through love or anger, they chose anger. When they had the choice to look inwards and resolve their emotional garbage, they chose to watch a movie instead. They chose to remain negative and pessimistic instead of calming down and finding a solution. They chose fear and lack of faith in their child over love and trust. Teens screw up because parents screwed up. In some rare cases children do go haywire (this is usually indicated in the horoscope) but I’ve seen balanced parents undo the damage very beautifully, even in extreme cases where children failed exams, lost a year in college, etc.

To blame television for the state of children today is to shirk responsibility. More often than not, parents put their little children in front of television sets to ‘get them off their back’ and let them cook, clean or work in peace. In a few years the child is addicted and then parents want the child off of TV. It doesn’t work that way. If parents would rather spend time with family and deal with tantrums head-on instead of pushing children to watch TV or play video games they lead by example that family is more important than artificial stimulation. But this is a choice parents don’t always make.

How can I handle all of this as a Reiki parent? 

As a parent, you have to be aware that children will almost always reflect your unresolved shadow – the parts of you that you don’t want to look at, acknowledge or work with. And this blows up in the most extreme way usually when the children are in their teens. If you want your children to be responsible, you have to be responsible first, starting with a proper daily self-healing practice of minimum 30-40 min, healing all Chakras.

Usually when parents are sincere about their practice, children are fascinated with the transformation and want to learn Reiki themselves, which again leads to a huge shift in their growth. Even if not, learning to focus on yourself and learning to own your emotions and work on them will go a long way. Children are always watching, even if they pretend they are not. And if you are the only sane and sorted individual in their life, sooner or later they are bound to turn to you when they need help. And when such a situation is approached through compassion and empathy, such an incident can completely change the relationship into a deeply trusted and loving one.