I was in the worth phase of my father­hood. Jonathan and I were in constant strug­gle games, and I felt cold and discon­nected from him. I could see his suffer­ing and knew he was strug­gling, but I could not find compas­sion towards him. I was tired, overwhelmed, reactive, aggres­sive, and had no patience for his ‚bad behav­iours’. I was far from being the loving father I used to be and felt like a failure. I knew something deep was happen­ing under­neath in both of us, but I couldn’t reach there. I knew I needed help but was not so good at asking and didn’t know where to start.

Mirac­u­lous Parent­ing (MP) was devel­oped 25 years ago by the Israeli Writer, Teacher and Thera­pist Shai Or. This thera­peu­tic approach sees the diffi­cul­ties children bring home or to school as a language and a way of express­ing their deeper needs that their parents are not seeing and answering.

I heard about MP from a friend who thought this approach suited me, and she was right. With the help of a great MP Thera­pist, I could see how a miracle had happened. My relation­ship with my son improved dramat­i­cally. I learned how to deepen my listen­ing to him and differ­en­ti­ate when I am react­ing from my immatu­rity and my own hurt child and when respond­ing from the mature side of mine. I fell in love with Jonathan again, I could see his wonder­ful beauty, wisdom and unique­ness and could soften and embrace both his and my weaknesses. It didn’t happen in a day, it was a long deep process of learn­ing and devel­op­ing new aware­ness, but it was excit­ing and fasci­nat­ing at the same time.

In the MP approach, every human comes to the world with seven basic requests: 1. The request for Home (security, nourish­ment and contain­ment), 2. Enjoy­ment, 3. Unique­ness, 4. Proxim­ity, close­ness, and sense of togeth­er­ness, 5. Freedom of Expres­sion, 6. Freedom of Think­ing, and 7. Freedom of Being.

When the child is on the path of flour­ish­ment and growth, all the requests are naturally answered, and the child can grow to become a fulfilled, free and happy whole mature person. But, in many cases, along the way, something goes wrong, and the child somehow moves from the path of flour­ish­ment when one or more requests he is asking for are not being heard and answered.

For example: when a child is furious and shouts his rage sponta­neously, his father or mother or both can get overwhelmed or even scared and try to control, change, shrink or sometimes even ignore it. Shutting the expres­sion of anger off or giving signs that it’s not cool to be too angry, too loud or too wild can bring a child (after a long time of asking) to the conclu­sion that “when I am angry - I am not loved”. Or in other words, there is no home for my emotions (The first request for home, contain­ment or the fifth request for freedom of expres­sion). He may learn that it’s ok to show only nero comfort­able range of emotions and will turn to be a very nice polite and good boy. A process of shrink­ing, filter­ing and control­ling took over his wild nature of emotional expression.

Some parents think that’s how it should be. A child should learn to control himself and behave. It’s more conve­nient to have quiet children at home or in a restau­rant, but there is a high price for it in the long term.

The under­neath message that parents are giving their children when a request is not being answered can develop into an activat­ing-block­ing belief mecha­nism like: „I better shut up“, „My inner world is not inter­est­ing“, „I do not deserve to be loved“, and more. Those belief systems guard mecha­nisms that can remain an inner melody for life and rule the grown-up child even 30, 40, or 50 years later.

MP Therapy help parents to listen to their children’s deep requests, gives them practi­cal tools to return to the route of flour­ish­ment, and devel­ops deep listen­ing skills for their own hurt child. This approach teaches parents to give what they never got, first to the parent and then to the child.

Recently I started my MP Thera­pist train­ing and started working intensely with parents. I am excited to see the miracle happen­ing in many other families from one week to the other. This approach brings a new meaning to parent­ing when realis­ing, as Shai Or says: “Parent­ing is the manufac­ture of human­ity”; in other words, by raising happy, free, and mature conscious adults, we promise a better future for humanity.

I still strug­gle with every­day challenges like many other parents, which are our daily routine with three little kids. But as a co-leading parent of my family, I have the tools to listen better to the under­neath requests of our children, and my wife and I have learned how to look at every diffi­cult situa­tion as an oppor­tu­nity for close­ness. Sometimes we manage alone, many times, we get help, and sometimes we get confused, falling and rising back to the next challenge.