When does your preparation for parenting really begin? Before setting up your little one’s nursery or rushing around shopping for baby essentials, have you considered that investing in yourself first could be the very best gift you can give your unborn child? How you and your partner feel about yourselves, and how you interact with those close to you, will have a powerful impact on how your child sees herself and how she makes sense of the world around her. As clinical professor of psychiatry, Daniel Siegel, MD says, “How you make sense of your childhood experiences has a profound effect on how you parent your own children.” Preparation for parenting starts at conception. So let’s Begin!
Sally Thorp is a Life Coach, Self-Esteem Facilitator and Director of Sally Thorp Coaching and Consulting. She is mom to two adult sons and step mom to two adult daughters. She and her husband live in Johannesburg. Sally works with adults, children, parents, teachers and teens at her self-esteem practice in Midrand. In Sally’s opinion, there is no other job in the world that is equal to or as important as the job of parenting – we are ‘raising’ the future generation and yet for this job, no previous experience is required, no formal qualifications or exams to sit. However, there is a great deal of preparation for parenting involved, and it starts with you, the parent:
Are you pregnant with your first child? Your preparation for parenting has already begun…
If you would like to be the very best parent you can be, the reality is that the journey starts with you: Your confidence, how you have dealt with your own life challenges, your own self-esteem. Many of the clients Sally works with have never questioned messages they received about themselves as little children and as adults they are still carrying these unchallenged. Maybe you too carry negative messages that were spoken to you as a child? These issues will impact how you relate to your own child and it is therefore really important to work through your own personal challenges if you would like to become the parent you would like to be to your own children.
Don’t miss Sally’s phenomenal talk entitled “Putting on Your Oxygen Mask: How Your Self-esteem Impacts Your Children” at 12:45 on Saturday 5 November at the Working Mothers Expo.
You can also sign up below to hear more about their Pregnant Couples Parenting Course, Committed at Conception, to give you and your partner the best possible start on your parenting journey. They will be giving away three Couples Courses at the Working Mothers Expo on 4-6 November.
Yes! I want to be a GREAT parent – send me some info please!
The Working Mothers Expo, brought to you in partnership with MiWayLife, brings together everything working mothers need under one roof. 4-6 November 2016. Sandton Convention Centre. Meet our MCs, Elana Afrika and Claire Mawisa, at the Speakers Corner.
If you would like to inquire about sponsoring or exhibiting at the event, please email us and we will send you all the details you need.
Tickets available at Computicket