It isn't easy parenting at the best of times and in lockdown all the challenges have been even tougher.
Dr Shefali Tsabary Photo: Supplied
Dr Shefali Tsabary offers new ideas from a blend of Eastern and Western philosophy for how to be present and stay sane and grounded. An idea more pertinent now than ever - when so much is out of our control.
"We need to stop taking ourselves so seriously," she said. "Live is eternal and it's beyond us. We are just these minuscule people for a speck of time. We're not the most important people in the world. We are not the most important people in our children's world.
Dr Tsabary said being rendered irrelevant by our children is a sign of their autonomy.
"We should allow for our insignificance, we should fade into the background. But no parent wants to hear this. We use our children to give ourselves a sense of significance and that’s the sickness."
She said the pandemic and it's ongoing effect on the world calls for adjustment, adaptation, flexibility, spontaneity and laughter and relaxation.
"Because the pressure is too much on the outside we have to let go of the pressure inside," she said.
Together at Home is a series of conversations held between Derek Handley from the Aera Foundation and a range of experts from around the world about how to cope in these strange times.
