Anita Marković

A Message for Parents

Dear parents, in this section I want to address you and present you the knowledge and experiences that truly enlightened me when I was studying to become a special educator, and later, a transactional analyst in the field of psychotherapy (TA-P), which had an empowering effect on me to become the best version of parent to my daughter.

I have accepted the fact that I had a good predisposition thanks to my profession. Also, the hours of working on myself throughout my life have largely contributed to what I will be like as a parent. The time I have invested in dealing with my developmental deficits, moments of my growing up and the hard times I went through as a child, internal conflicts over whether I am worth as a person or not, inherited system of treating myself and others have explained, to a great extent, what I want to keep as parts of myself and what is an excess and an obstacle not only for me and my life but also for my marriage life with a child. It's never too late to turn to yourself and embark on the journey of self-realization!

I am telling all of this from my own experience, so I am asking you to understand it as a testimony and one of the ways to go through life. There is no doubt that parenting is learned on the go. However, I consider it important to open what we cannot overcome so easily on the go for ourselves and our hearts and seek help. Although it sometimes seems so scary to face and deal with our imperfections, they still give us the opportunity to learn from our mistakes – if it weren't for them, we wouldn't know what to change. That's why working on yourself is so important because it provides you with the opportunity to discover how some blockages were created, as well as how to overcome them and live in harmony with your true nature.

There are many ways you can work on yourself. Psychotherapy is one of them. You can choose the model and approach you like or you can change it. The only important thing is to be open, go ahead and allow yourself to feel which model suits you, and use your intuition to find a therapist you can connect with and reach your goal.

I will use my practical experience in working with children to share my observations regarding the difference between my work with children without parental involvement and the work when parents are engaged in working on themselves and in the joint healing process at the same time. There is a huge difference! Whoever is the therapist who works with your child, the work time is reduced to about 2 hours per week. So, being parents, you spend the most time with your children. The therapist does not have a magic wand to "fix" the child's condition and/or the situation at home unless you, as parents, get involved in the process of working on yourself. Whatever the child is going through, it is happening in your family environment, therefore it is not accidental. You are also an integral part of what is happening. By changing yourself, raising the level of your awareness, and incorporating your practical knowledge about what can be done differently and how you can do it, the situation in the family will change for the better. Nothing can stay the same forever.

I want to emphasize that working on yourself does not mean that you will go through crises or fly into a rage never again. It just means that you will be empowered to recognize why you are flying into a rage, what content it is driven by, whether it is something inside you or not, and accordingly, what you can do to quickly and easily get out of that seemingly unsolvable situation as a winner. Together with your child or your children, you would become a mighty creator of your own family harmony and happiness.

In the texts below, I will share with you practical explanations and some of the materials for working together. Please, if you wish, see the recommendations on the literature suitable for you to inform about the possibilities for starting your self-help i.e., self-improvement process on the path to healthy parenting. >>>