Creating optimal health and a high-quality life today, on a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual level is no easy task. Anywhere we look, we can see signs within our society of all things that create imbalances on all of these levels, steering us away from things that truly matter and nourish our being. The task becomes that much more challenging when we consider the creation of optimal wellbeing for children today; the smallest members of our society who are most prone to being positively or negatively influenced by what they see, hear, eat, are subjected to, or experience.
This is why the role of the modern parent, grandparent, guardian, or school teacher must be taken more seriously than ever before. That is if we desire for our kids to thrive. We don’t have the luxury today to look the other way and “hope that they turn out okay.” There are simply too many factors stacked against the children’s proper physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual development. And unless we take an active and conscious role as parents, teachers, or care givers, we are leaving our children and future generations exposed to evermore destructive lifestyles and deteriorating levels of wellbeing.
The good news is that thanks to an ever expanding collective consciousness, which is ushering in increasing numbers of health and life-conscious individuals, we are being offered an increasing number of life-promoting choices and effective solutions. Then, it all begins with our commitment to take an active and conscious role in how we nurture, care for, and foster the development of any children within our care.
One such solution, to help us succeed in this endeavor, is the newly released book Conscious Parenting: A Holistic Guide to Raising and Nourishing Healthy, Happy Children written by Dr. Gabriel Cousens and Leah Lynn. It is judicious to know, however, that this is no ordinary parenting book, but rather a leading-edge resource, which provides highly expanded and enlightened approaches for raising children who can thrive amidst some of the greatest obstacles of modern society. The aim of the book is to provide safe, sound, and time-tested tools, advice, and inspiration for anyone whose role includes being a parent, grandparent, or any other vital child-nurturing role, and who wishes to provide an optimally healthy, intelligently safe, consciously-expanding, and spiritually-connected environment for any children in their care.
“The role of the parent is to prepare the most fertile soil and appropriately water the seedling so it can most fully blossom.”
Conscious Parenting, Dr. Gabriel Cousens and Leah Lynn
About the Authors
Conscious Parenting is written by Rabbi Dr. Gabriel Cousens and Leah Lynn.
Rabbi Dr. Gabriel Cousens is a world-recognized medical doctor and spiritual teacher. He is the founder and director of the Tree of Life Foundation and the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Patagonia, Arizona, as well as a leading authority on healing of the body, mind, and spirit. He is also the best selling author of many books, including Conscious Eating, Spiritual Nutrition, and There is a Cure for Diabetes. To learn more, visit: www.drcousens.com
Leah (Michaela) Lynn is a Montessori teacher and the author of Baby Greens: A Live-Food Approach for Children of All Ages. She is the founder of Mama Greens Children’s Garden, a nurturing home-based daycare in Patagonia, Arizona, where her recipes were tried and perfected.
Content Overview
The book features over 500 pages, which are divided into introductory sections, 13 chapters, recipes and resources. A general summary of the chapters is as follows:
Chapter 1: The Alive Parent and Child
Helps parents and grandparents understand their role, and the role of children in their lives.
Chapter 2: Creating an Alive Environment
Describes what an alive environment is for the optimal, healthy development of children, for both parents and children, and how to create such an environment via the 6 Foundations for a Spiritual Life and The Sevenfold Peace. This section also presents the stages of child development, what takes place, and what is most valuable for the child at each stage.
Chapter 3: Supporting the Child’s Physical Development
Explores the science and rationale for advising a vegan, live-food diet for children and the protocol required for such a diet to be safe and effective for children’s physical, mental, and emotional development. It goes into depth describing nutrient advantages and disadvantages of vegan and omnivore diets, as well as how specific animal foods work against our and our children’s present and future health. The chapter also presents information about the necessity of physical touch and a hands-on relationship with children, as well as proper sleep at each age for optimal growth and development.
Chapter 4: Why Authentic, Vegan, Organic Food?
Explains how and why veganic organic farming is done and how it compares in food quality to regular organic farming and to conventional farming. It also provides a comprehensive understanding of why choosing organic is critical today, highlighting the many serious pesticide and GMO dangers, and offers a further comparison of vegan to omnivore diets.
Chapter 5: Holistic Veganism
Presents the 7 Principles of Holistic Veganism that explore how and why a holistic vegan approach is optimal for our physical, mental, moral, environmental, and spiritual development.
Chapter 6: Supporting the Child’s Emotional Development
Shares information and practical guidance to help the child develop a healthy sense of self-esteem, help honor their personal emotions and express them in healthy ways. This chapter also explores the consequences of positive, negative, and lack of attention on child development.
Chapter 7: Supporting the Child’s Social Development
Presents information and practical ideas for healthy social development within the home and community, conflict resolution, and social interactions.
Chapter 8: Supporting the Child’s Developing Mind
Presents information on how to help optimal development of the child’s mind, including the role of movement, nature, and dietary fats. It also explores some of the modern challenges that plague children’s minds today, including stress, depression, the media, and pornography, as well as deficient diets that promote mental degeneration.
Chapter 9: The Great Vaccine Question
Shares information and research about the failings of vaccines as safe and effective tools for preventing disease. The chapter presents the common claims used to pressure parents into vaccinating their children, debunking commonly held myths about vaccines, and analyzes the ethics of mandatory vaccinations.
Chapter 10: Maximizing Aliveness by Minimizing Toxic Synergy
Presents information on other toxins that can pose various health threats to the development of children on all levels, as well as practical ideas for protection against them. These being: gluten, marijuana, fluoride, EMFs, and raditation.
Chapter 11: Supporting the Child’s Spiritual Development
Presents how to help the optimal spiritual development of the child via food choices, time spent in silence, imagination, meaningful work, music, love, and intimacy.
Chapter 12: Recipes for Children
Offers food lists and tips for parents to transition their children to a healthy way of eating. Includes information about living water and proper hydration for children, and provides numerous recipes for making snacks and meals for babies and children of all ages.
Personal Commentary
When it comes to Conscious Parenting, it is easy to offer praise for this book as it brings to the forefront the real and serious challenges of life in modern society that all too many are either afraid to talk about or all too willing to overlook. However, if we are going to know how to behave in the most effective way as parents and caregivers today, the first step is to openly and honestly know what we are up against. It is then that we can begin to look for and apply effective solutions that have the true wellbeing of our children in mind, but also our own wellbeing, and the wellbeing of our planet and all future generations. This is where Conscious Parenting shines by also providing such solutions, while offering enlightened inspiration and support for the modern parent. Additionally, the book provides a synergistically balanced view of topics from an optimally health-conscious perspective. A reader considering this book should expect everything from in-depth discussions on various physical and spiritual matters to vaccines, GMOs, and everything in between. This is in fact one of the many aspects that I most enjoyed about this book, its wide-reaching scope, and then the elegant way in which the specific topics were aligned together to create a clear vision of the big picture.
“The message is clear—a naturally health-educated child will naturally tend to choose healthy food, and also to be an inspiration to parents to move to a more natural and healthy diet.”
Conscious Parenting, Dr. Gabriel Cousens and Leah Lynn
It is most important also to keep in mind that this book provides a holistic and alternative perspective, rather than a conventional and mainstream one to parenting. It is perhaps obvious to understand why the former is of extreme value today, as it is all too easy to see the negative effects and consequences of the latter. Although this book can be picked up by any parent or caregiver, there is no doubt that its tremendous value will be most appreciated by those who are serious about real health and high-quality wellbeing; those that are looking for root-level solutions, rather than surface-level quick fixes without being willing to look at the root of the issues that children, parents, families, and communities face today. For example, the book’s emphasis and elaborate coverage on the importance of the organic, veganic, live-food diet will be that much more appreciated by someone who already understands the problems associated with animal foods today, rather than someone who lives with the everything in moderation paradigm. Similarly, the recipes are geared to be optimally healthy, life-giving, and healing and do require a different approach to food preparation and nutrition, including the kinds of kitchen tools we would benefit from having and not having.
“Holistic veganism, including buying organic produce, is a way of life, of loving ourselves, loving our children and loving our planet.”
Conscious Parenting, Dr. Gabriel Cousens and Leah Lynn
All in all, the book offers an abundance of valuable, enlightening, educating, empowering, and motivating information, as well as practical tips, ideas, exercises, and even recipes. Its main information is geared for children from infancy to the teens, although some content deals specifically with teens and their development right into adulthood. All of the information weaves an excellent blend of quality science, personal experience from the authors, and societal and spiritual relevance. Speaking of spiritual, the reader should be prepared that the essence of this book has a strong spiritual undertone, including spiritual wisdom from all major traditions and references to various spiritual and/or religious texts. This spiritual emphasis reflects the solutions at the deepest levels of who we are, and how to effectively transform and create the most alive, healthy, and happy children. In doing so, it helps parents step away from fear-based control and dominion over children, and into a love-based, conscious and present nurturing of all dimensions of the child’s being.
“Spirituality by example is the great teaching style that children understand, remember, and learn from.”
Conscious Parenting, Dr. Gabriel Cousens and Leah Lynn
Conclusion
Whether we are a parent or not, most of us have some interaction with children in our lives, be those via personal or professional interactions, and it is for this reason that I highly recommend any individual in such a role to consider reading this book. You may find yourself excitedly agreeing with the content, or sighing a big sense of relief to have your suspicions and actions backed up, or you may find yourself somewhat uncomfortable with some of the content. Whatever the case may be, remember, the most effective change takes place when we are open to new ideas and new ways of doing things. Then, it simply follows to take steps in the direction we wish to go, consistently, but with one step at a time, as we feel most ready for. And so on that note, I invite you to take the first step today, simply by saying yes to being more conscious with any children in your care. Take time to listen to them, really see them, and love them. From this space great things happen, and will naturally lead you to the next best step for nurturing healthy and happy children.
“It is the environment surrounding the child that teaches the most, rather than what we say—no matter how loudly it is said. Foundational for teaching our children is to be the living example of what we aim to teach.”
Conscious Parenting, Dr. Gabriel Cousens and Leah Lynn