What lingers from the parent's individual past, unresolved or incomplete, often becomes part of her or his irrational parenting.
Interpretation
Unresolved issues from a parent's past can negatively impact their parenting style.
Virginia Satir suggests that the personal histories and unresolved conflicts of parents can significantly influence their behaviors and decisions in raising children. This means that what parents have experienced, whether positive or negative, can manifest in their parenting approach, potentially leading to irrational or unintended consequences that affect their children's development and emotional well-being.
In practice
During a parenting workshop, a speaker may reference this quote to highlight the importance of self-awareness in parenting.
Over the years I have developed a picture of what a human being living humanely is like. She is a person who understand, values and develops her body, finding it beautiful and useful; a person who is real and is willing to take risks, to be creative, to manifest competence, to change when the situation calls for it, and to find ways to accommodate to what is new and different, keeping that part of the old that is still useful and discarding what is not.
The message sent is not always the message received.
The recommended daily requirement for hugs is: four per day for survival, eight per day for maintenance, and twelve per day for growth.
Your responses to the events of life are more important than the events themselves.
Put together all the existing families and you have society. It is as simple as that. Whatever kind of training took place in the individual family will be reflected in the kind of society that these families create.
I feel that adolescence has served its purpose when a person arrives at adulthood with a strong sense of self-esteem, the ability to relate intimately, to communicate congruently, to take responsibility, and to take risks. The end of adolescence is the beginning of adulthood. What hasn't been finished then will have to be finished later.
The one thing I remember about Christmas was that my father used to take me out in a boat about ten miles offshore on Christmas Day, and I used to have to swim back. Extraordinary. It was a ritual. Mind you, that wasn't the hard part. The difficult bit was getting out of the sack.
Your children are spiritual beings who come through you, not for you.
My mom is one of those people that you feel honored to meet. And no matter who you are, you fall in love with her because she is spiritual, she's inspiring, she's strong, she's funny, she's creative, she's talented... she's everything that I want to be.
The father who does not teach his son his duties is equally guilty with the son who neglects them.
After my parents passed away - in 2000 and 2003 - I felt I could take the time to think about the past and imagine what it would have been like to be my grandmother.
After my mom died, there was so much written about her fashion and her style and all that, and I felt that one of the most important parts of her was missing, her real intellectual curiosity.
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