How Do You Bring Up Your Child When You're A Child Yourself?

Once, during a quiet evening, I saw and heard this over TV Channel 7 broadcast, "Paano ka mag-aalaga ng bata kung ikaw ay bata rin?"

It struck me a lot. A therapeutic question! How indeed do you bring up your child when you're a child yourself?

 That question gave me one of my most insightful points during a self parenting seminar that I did in a large, South Manila-based school. Around a hundred people or more came (fathers and mothers, teachers, principal, guidance counselors, including the wives of the municipality's mayor and congressman).

It's a different kind of parenting seminar. That's because my focus was on the parents themselves and not on the children. In the seminar, I shared about inner healing and character formation of the parents first before they can apply healthy parenting techniques to their children.

I also shared about my own parenting journey. My ups and downs. My mistakes and joys. More than a psychotherapist, I'm a human father with three children. I've known and experienced how essential it is to be an "adult father," not a "child father."

I hope to reach out to more parents in this area of "self-parenting." I'm not an expert on child rearing techniques (others can more effectively teach that!). But I believe I've been raised in a unique way to teach well on how to "parent one's self" and heal the "inner child" as a foundation for authentic, longterm, healthy parenting of children.


I know. I've been there. And I'm thankful for the opportunity to experience it first-hand myself.