Nick Polizzi - Conscious Parenting: A Guide to Raising Resilient, Wholehearted & Empowered Kids

Exhausted

Trauma

ALSO BY NICK POLIZZI

The Sacred Science

ALSO BY PEDRAM SHOJAI, O.M.D.

Focus

All of the above are available at your local bookstore,
or may be ordered by visiting:

Hay House USA: www.hayhouse.com
Hay House Australia: www.hayhouse.com.au
Hay House UK: www.hayhouse.co.uk
Hay House India: www.hayhouse.co.in

Copyright 2021 by Rising Tide Productions, LLC

Published in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hayhouse.com

Published in Australia by: Hay House Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au

Published in the United Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk

Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in

Indexer: Joan Shapiro

Cover design: Michelle Polizzi Interior design: Nick C. Welch

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private useother than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviewswithout prior written permission of the publisher.

The authors of this book do not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the authors is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, the authors and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file at the Library of Congress

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4019-5904-3

E-book ISBN: 978-1-4019-5905-0

Audiobook ISBN: 978-1-4019-5955-5

For our children, and for kids everywhere.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the game for parents everywhere. Women dropped out of the workforce in record numbers to care for and raise their children. Millions of kids were without access to broadband and the internet, which made remote learning and connecting to friends and loved ones nearly impossible. Kids faced loneliness and isolation. And many families experienced food insecurity, job loss, and economic hardship. While many families, especially in the United States, have begun emerging from the pandemic, these challenges and others still exist, and we have yet to know the full impact this experience has had on our children.

We imagined this book long before the pandemic and economic crisis upended parents lives everywhere. Seemingly overnight, parents were thrust into impossible positions with having to juggle working from home and remote schooling, while others were on the frontlines and risking their health and well-being, while still others were forced out of work. Parents and their children have gone through so much already, and were not on the other side of this pandemic and economic crisis.

As parents too, both of us have struggled. We, and our wives, have agonized over planning healthy meals, limiting screen time, managing our kids social isolation, assisting them with their homework and remote classes, and helping them cope with big feelings.

While this book was originally written for a nonpandemic life, we still found ourselves turning to many of the tips and strategies that youre about to read to help us raise our kids during this difficult time. Little did we know how universal these insights would be. At their core, the suggestions can help us navigate parenting more confidently, create deeper and stronger connections with our children, and bring greater awareness to our thoughts, emotions, and reactions as parents.

Being a parent is the greatest honor, privilege, and responsibility we have ever known. It also challenges us in ways that we never expected. No one asked to live through, let alone parent, during this historic moment. We recognize the extraordinary pressure youre under, and we honor your love and commitment to your children. Our wish is that you can use this book to inspire and guide you on your parenting journey. Our hope is that the suggestions youre about to read will help you through the most difficult and harrowing moments of parenting as you teach your children to become whole in their minds, bodies, hearts, and souls.

Stay present.
Pedram + Nick

Being a parent is an incredible experience.

Its also terrifying.

The world looks nothing like what it did when we were kids growing up. Today, parents and children are confronted with a lot of unknown variables and experiences that we dont have good strategies for.

Parents have to find ways to raise resilient, wholehearted, and empowered kids while navigating numerous challenges like: increasingly advanced technology that has placed countless devices and screens into the hands of babes; a food supply that is grown using loads of toxins and chemicals that can disrupt our kids health, behavior, and moods; a culture driven by hyperconsumerism that leaves our kids addicted to external sources of happiness, buying, and possessing material items; existential threats like climate change, natural disasters, and mass shootings that leave kids terrified, anxious, and depressed about the world they will inherit; an outdated education system that fixates on test scores and rote memorization, leaving kids with fewer opportunities to explore their imagination and curiosity, or to develop resiliency, independence, moral reasoning, and critical thinking; a Western culture that subscribes to the belief that for our kids to be successful, parents must keep them busy, exposing them to everythingfrom music lessons to sports to clubsinstead of allowing kids to just be kids.

No wonder parents often feel overwhelmed, exhausted, and scared. It takes a lot of discernment, awareness, and the ability to make conscious choices to help guide our kids through these experiences.

The answers arent always obvious or intuitive, yet we want them. We need them.

We have dedicated our careers to helping people heal. Nick has battled health conditions like blackout migraines that modern medicine couldnt cure and that led him to seek shamanic healing in Peru. As a documentary filmmaker, he has trekked through the jungles of Central and South America and the Caribbean islands searching for and documenting the alternative healing practices of shamans, medicine men and women, and healers.

Pedram has also wandered through Central and South America, as well as East Asia, on his way to becoming an ordained priest of the Yellow Dragon Monastery in China, an acclaimed qigong and kung fu master, a master herbalist, and a doctor of Oriental medicine.

As entrepreneurs, weve started, grown, and operated successful businesses, and each of us has written numerous books individually and together. Everything we do has the same intention: to help heal people and this planet.

As much as were devoted to our shared mission, its dwarfed by being dads. Nick and his wife are parents to two boys, while Pedram and his wife have a son and daughter. Raising emotionally intelligent, mentally resilient, physically healthy, and spiritually strong kids is the most