Integral Parenting is a conscious approach to parenting which addresses the body, mind, soul and spirit of the child. It considers the activities and engagements which can best serve the fullest unfolding of a human being during the dynamic formative and fertile early period of life.
Integral Parenting aims at deepening, broadening and heightening our insight, awareness and integrity of our actions and attitudes as parents in relation to the growing child.
Integral Parenting balances the need for parents to offer their child unconditional love and support and provide direction and guidance, and at times set very clear boundaries and corrections. In addition, the absolutely critical and transformative role of the parent is explored: what does it mean, both practically and spiritually, to be integrally informed and infused, authentic and present, open to transform and evolve in the parent-child relationship?
In bringing an integral approach to parenting, we explore and integrate the entire aspects of what it means to be human, and how we can apply this to how we raise children. In integral parenting, we seek to afford the child the opportunities to unfold wholistically in a way which supports all his internal and external human potentialities. This means that we pay close attention to the inner life of a child as well as her outer life; it also means that we look at the culture and the society in which the child is enfolded for the purpose of managing the elements which help the child’s unfoldment.
” Integral parenting also acknowledges the developmental levels a child moves through as he matures, as well as the various lines of development, i.e. the many facets of her growth, from the cognitive line to the emotional one, from the social to the psychosexual and others. Also, the importance of states of consciousness is acknowledged (e.g.focused attention, imaginative reverie, and creative flow) for an individual’s development, motivation, and insight. And lastly, integral parenting considers types—a person’s gender, as well as his or her particular enduring tendencies and inclinations, e.g. whether someone is generally introverted or extraverted.”
Education of the child is a continuum which starts even before birth, spanning the entire life of the human being. Integral Parenting occupies a distinct position on this continuum with unique contributions that facilitate other aspects of the child’s education. Parents have to understand the unique role they play in the education of their children. Integral Parenting focuses on this unique role and strategies in the education of the child.
Integral Parenting embraces both the transcendental as well as the immanent nature of the human being: parenting for transcendence while simultaneously acknowledging the power of perfection in everything and everyone. This is what actually helps parents see the glory and grandeur unfolding slowly within the child