You can be the parent you have always dreamed of. You can be a heart-centered parent, connect with yourself, your teen and those around you. We are here to support you every step of the way. You can learn more about heart-centered parenting, have your questions answered, and hear from Vive’s Mentors and Parent Coaches by subscribing to Vive News Now.

We want to hear from you whether you are a seasoned veteran with Chaos to Connection or you are just starting out and wondering where to begin. What are your questions, concerns, and fears about heart-centered parenting and the essentials? How has heart-centered parenting impacted your life and your relationship with your teen? Share your story here.

Photographs portrays the power of parents in developing connection with their children, and introduces the heart-centered essentials of AWARENESS, getting SUPPORT, and establishing SAFETY in the family through a familiar situation between Scott, the father, and his daughter, Hannah.

In difficult situations and challenging times with your teen, as seen in Photographs, you cannot control your child’s feelings or behavior. You can take responsibility for your feelings and behavior and choose to respond to your child in a different way, a way that creates connection. Through awareness, you awaken to who you truly are, using mindfulness to turn your attention to what you are feeling physically and emotionally and to what you are thinking. It is so easy to miss what is going on inside of us, especially in chaotic times! But what is going inside of us affects how we respond and connect to others. As Scott talks about in Photographs, your internal state can act as a voice modifier, changing what you are saying and getting in the way of really connecting with others.

Through support, Scott is able to uncover what is behind his neck pain and to learn to respond to his daughter differently, in a way that creates connection rather than disconnection. Because we are wired to be in relationships, support is vital to having a relationship with your teen. It is your responsibility to gather around you the friends and professionals you need to provide you with support to have your needs met.

Safety is a state in your family in which each person has space for his own feelings and essential self. In Photographs, the initial fight about Hannah’s grades created a lack of safety at home for Hannah. Indeed, the fact that Hannah was afraid to show her parents her grades indicates that she didn’t feel safe to share a problem with her parents. As a parent, you are a loving leader and need to create safety in your home, including emotional, physical and relational safety. Your practice in awareness and seeking support creates emotional safety in your family.

Like Scott, through heart-centered essentials, you can learn awareness and how to get support to reestablish your home and family as a safe place for your teen to be himself.

Through the heart-centered essentials of awareness, safety and support, parents strengthen themselves and uncover their true self to become a place of safety for their teens. Parents are just beginning to be able to provide the loving support their teen needs while experiencing their own emotions and returning to a place of calm. Like these parents, you can learn how awareness, safety and support help you to connect with your teen. Read what our parents experience:

“When my daughter was little, we had a wonderful, loving relationship. When she turned 16, all of a sudden our relationship became really intense and volatile, and she shut me out. I missed my daughter so much! But I was also scared by her behavior. When I became aware of my own emotions and guilt about the past and learned how to be a safe, unconditionally loving place for her, we began to grow closer and closer. Our relationship is becoming a sweet loving connection again.”

“I used to feel like a victim of my son’s behavior without any choices or power when he missed curfew or came home drunk. He would come in the door late at night, and I would just crumple into tears. When I got the support I needed to really look at my own feelings and have loving support to talk, I started to feel stronger. I learned that I could choose how to react.”

“I really had no idea how much being aware of myself and taking care of myself mattered in how I reacted to my daughter. I used to be a big ball of anger that just exploded whenever my daughter did her own acting out. Now I understand the importance of dealing with myself and calming myself so I can be a safe place for her. It has made such a difference in how she handles her own feelings.”

• How do I keep my teen safe while focusing on the relationship?

First, it is important to be aware whether your teen is actually in an unsafe situation or whether you are just worried they are. Often, when parents don’t know about what their teens are engaging in, they can create a lot of scary—but not necessarily true—stories. By focusing on your relationship with your teen and creating a safe space where your teen can share with you, your teen will feel more comfortable talking to you. You can then better assess their safety needs.

• How does being aware of my own state of being help my teen when he is struggling?

By being aware of your own state of being, you are aware of your feelings, emotions, physical sensations and thoughts and can choose how you react in a situation and to be present in the moment. You can then choose to be a “safe receptacle” for your teen to work through what he is struggling with. When your teen is struggling and comes to you to get support, he does not want to see you start to struggle in reaction to them. Further, when you struggle in reaction to your teen, you may have a tendency to try and “fix” him so we don’t have to feel our own discomfort. If you are aware of your own state of being, you hear your teen and give him an unconditionally loving presence in which he can find his way through his own struggle.

• I really want to support my teen but he won’t let me. How can I be supportive when she doesn’t want my help?

If your teen is resisting your support, check in and ask yourself “why” you want to help your teen. Is it to make yourself feel better? Is it because you are feeling your own discomfort in watching them struggle and want to “fix” it for them? Often, parents have their own agendas that sneak into “being supportive.” If you really want to support your teen, check in first with your own agendas and make sure you aren’t putting those on your teen. Consider also what you are really asking for when you seek support from someone.