On Saturday May 19, I talked to Gayathri Narayanan and Robert Niederman about Mindful Parenting. The concept is that the parent-child relationship does not need to be adversarial and confrontational. What I took away from this show is that kids, no matter how young, need to feel that they are valued as individuals and that their feelings and thoughts are important. It sounded too good to be true, but my guests firmly believed that just acknowledging your child’s point of view would go a long way in defusing the tension in the parent-child relationship. At the end of show I brought a cool camp for teens to the listeners’ attentions. It is a fun and rewarding camp for the socially conscious teen and is run by the Bay Area Solidarity Summer group. More info at http://www.solidaritysummer.org/

Here is the recording of the show.

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Here are some other resources for the parent interested in learning more about the mindful parenting technique.

Books

Kohn, Alfie. Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason. New York: Atria Books, 2005.

Rosenberg, Marshall. Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. California: PuddleDancer Press, 2001.

Siegel, Daniel J., and Mary Hartzell. Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive. New York: Penguin Press, 2004.

Goleman, Daniel. Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. New York: Bantam Books, 1995.

Gottman, John. Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child: The Heart of Parenting. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

Grille, Robin. Parenting for a Peaceful World. New York: Longueville Press, 2005.

Websites

http://www.echoparenting.org/

http://www.cnvc.org/

http://www.alfiekohn.org/index.php

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2730447/ (this is a paper on mindful parenting)

Youtube Videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu7wEr8AnHw (Daniel Siegel’s TED talk)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awzf-wzao1Y (Alfie Kohn)

ICC Parent Talk is a weekly radio show sponsored by the India Community Center. It airs on Radio Zindagi, 1550 AM, live on Saturday mornings at 10 a.m. The call in number for the show is 510-7701550.

If you have questions or comments about the show, or if you would like to participate on the show, please drop me a line at radio@indiacc.org. For news about the upcoming shows, check out the ICC Parent Talk page.