When I was raising our baby daughter, who is now nearly a teen, and while is was writing my Book Beginning Well: Empathy from the Very Beginning – inspired by Waldorf education and the Pikler approach – I often thought: “Oh, my goodness, I am making so many mistakes and what I’m doing with my own child is so far from what I am trying to teach others.” 

I realized more and more that education is not about being perfect. It is about courage and commitment to  growing lifelong  self-awareness. It’s about  myself to not know, to be open-hearted, striving and vulnerable. In my work with parents, caregivers and teachers, I’ve noticed over and over again that many of us work very hard to do everything right, for example, to organize our daily rhythm the “Waldorf and/or Pikler way”.

But if we caregivers carry out other people’s ideas of how we should parent, if we act unconsciously, mechanically, or without an awareness of the impact of our actions on our children or ourselves, we won’t be present or truly connected with our little ones. 

With this article, I want to encourage you to focus on growing your  self-awareness. In my experience, only by becoming self-aware can we truly recognize and support our child’s unique being. To read more, click here.