Inner Brilliance: The Key to Your Child’s Happiness and Success

As a family coach and child development educator, I’ve seen many parents tolerate on-going difficulties and stress, living with frustration and emotionally painful interactions with their children – often for needless years.

It hurts my heart when I see children and their parents live with so much less than what is possible when a few simple changes would dramatically reduce their stress and create more harmony and fulfillment for everyone in their family.

I have found the key to our children’s happiness and success is to nurture their Inner Brilliance. Ours too!

What happens when we nurture our children’s Inner Brilliance? What difference does it really make?

Here is a story to help you understand the importance of Inner Brilliance for you and your child and how it works.

Jane and Tom love their son and do their best to be good parents, daily teaching him what he needs to know and monitoring his behavior so he will be a good kid and succeed.

Over time, this becomes a lot of work. It seems their son thinks of so many things to do and say that he’s not supposed to and getting him to do homework is often a battle.  They don’t like being frustrated with him yet it seems they have to keep repeating things he should already know.

When they see other parents around them doing much the same things with their children, they continue with their regimen of trying to teach him what they believe is important and improve their his behavior. They perceive his behavior as “normal” for his age, and they persevere, hoping it will get better soon.

The challenges have now become a way of life for Jane and Tom, and they barely notice them any more nor how stressed they are.  It’s just status quo.

They wonder what it’s going to be like when their son becomes a teen and about his future and his ability to take care of himself as an adult, to make wise choices and to get along well with others.

One day their good friends Sarah and Bill drop by with their two children, and they can hardly believe their eyes. Sarah and Bill seem so much happier and more relaxed since they last saw them. Their children are more mature, happier and more cooperative then before.

“What did you two do? You look great, and your kids are so much more grown-up!

Sarah and Bill smile. “We’d love to tell you! We discovered Joyous Parenting™ and learned to nurture our kids’ Inner Brilliance instead of trying to control them all the time.

“This is much easier than what we were doing before. Our children’s behavior has improved dramatically. They’re so much happier and fun to be around, and they make choices on their own that amaze us! We’re so proud of who they are!

“The biggest change is we now focus on ourselves first and improve our own behavior, attitudes and beliefs; and our children have naturally changed and grown too.”

Tom and Jane ask, “Please tell us more! Is it difficult?

“Quite the contrary. The first two or three weeks were a little hard because we were so used to focusing on the kids and not ourselves. It quickly got easier though , and soon we were seeing big changes in ourselves and our kids.

“Now we love the time we have with them and love watching them discover and become who they are.”

Then Sarah and Bill show them pictures of two different apple trees, one with dark, unhealthy apples in which the parents are struggling and working hard to take care of the tree. The other tree has apples that are bright red, healthy and flourishing, and the parents are relaxed and enjoying their beautiful apple tree.

Sarah and Bill explain,”The apple tree represents a child, and the apples on the tree represent the child’s behaviors. The first tree represents our old approach to parenting, in which we focused on managing our kid’s behaviors and telling them what to do..

“We were focused on making sure the apples – our children’s behaviors and words – were the right ones. We worked so hard, polishing up their behavior to teach them to be the way we believed they should be.

“Whenever we spotted an apple, a behavior, that looked unsocial, inappropriate or unacceptable, we rushed to fix it, polishing the apple with explanations and instructions, spraying it with rewards and punishments, then hoped our children’s behavior would improve.

“Then a couple of months ago, we realized what we were doing wasn’t working. Things weren’t getting any better so we looked for a new way to help our kids grow healthy and strong.

“Thank goodness we discovered Joyous Parenting™, an approach based on nurturing our children’s Inner Brilliance.

“Imagine if you were growing an apple tree in your yard. It’s much the same. We began to focus on giving our tree – our children – the water and nutrients it needed to grow without over-watering with too much care nor too much pruning that would stifle and limit the apple tree’s growth.

“We focused on what we were doing and then relaxed and enjoyed watching our children – the apple tree – flourish under our conscious, loving care. We stayed attentive to our children’s self-confidence and self-expression so we could observe how they were doing and adjust our behavior and choices accordingly.

“Here’s a couple of examples to give you a better idea of what we are doing differently.

“Starting when the kids were young, we daily told them what to wear. Even when they got older, we refused to consider what styles they wanted to wear and continued to buy them clothes they didn’t even like.

Now we want them to have the clothes they want. We draw the line if it’s too skimpy or they want to wear fancy clothes on a camping trip.  We trust their ability to choose and want them to express their uniqueness, just as we do.

“Another example. In the past we felt it was our job to keep our kids entertained and to choose their activities for them without even asking what they wanted. We had some awful arguments trying to get them to practice or go to a game.

“Now we let them choose. They get so much more enjoyment and value from their activities. Plus we no longer feel it is our job to keep them entertained. It’s theirs. If they’re bored, it’s their job to sort it out, not ours.

“We have brilliant, capable kids and we now realize the only way for them to make good choices in life is to let them practice during all their growing up years.

“Seemingly overnight the apples – our children’s behavior – turned a brighter, healthier red and improved dramatically. Our repetitive conflicts and challenges diminished or disappeared entirely. The sparkle has returned to their eyes, and we all enjoy each other so much more.

“We trust and respect our children in all areas, which is something we weren’t really doing before.

“Just as the apple tree naturally flourishes when its roots are watered and it receives plenty of sunshine and good nutrients from the soil, our kids flourish when we nurture their Inner Brilliance.

“We always wanted the best for our kids and had the best of intentions, but we just didn’t have the tools we needed. We’ve discovered we were unknowingly limiting our children. They’re so much more capable and amazing than we realized.”

After hearing Sarah and Bill’s story, Jane and Tom understood what they needed to do. They too had the best of intentions for their kids yet it wasn’t working as well as it could. Immediately, they set out to learn everything they could about nurturing their son’s and their own Inner Brilliance.

In just a few short weeks, all four parents delighted in seeing their children flourish and celebrated their brilliant children.

And Sue and Bill, Jane and Tom and all their children lived happily ever after, from one generation to the next, delighting in all they continue to discover and create together.