You have a choice

You have a choice in how you move forward in parenting your child and how you react to your child’s other parent. Remember, no one else can ever truly make you angry; you make a choice to become angry. This gives you a lot of power. If you choose not to react angrily to something your child’s other parent says, in effect, you win. Their goal might be to make you angry and if you make another choice, they have not accomplished their goal and you win. Remember to “take the high road.” It will pay off.

I believe that all we have is the present moment. If we are thinking about the past or worrying about the future, we are not living to our full potential. What this means is that right now, in this present moment, you can decide to make changes in your life and to do it differently.

Declare the past complete and choose to leave it there. At this point, nothing can be done and it is only wasting energy to focus on it. Begin to live today using what you have learned from this book. Put one or two things into practice right now. You can make a choice to do it differently, for your child’s future.

Your child’s future is being created right now, in this moment, with the choices you make. Please look at your choices as not about you and your ego, but see them as being about your child and your family you now have with your child. I truly know you have done your best up to this point and now with this knowledge, it is time to make even better choices. Life is too short for anything less.

The decisions you make each moment with your children and how you choose to act will impact these huge life goals in your children’s lives. Know in your heart that you have the ability to make new and good choices every moment. You are strong and powerful. Your children are counting on you as their guidepost in life to make decisions that will provide them with the opportunity to be the happiest and most productive adult possible. I know that sometimes this can feel like a very scary proposition. You are not alone in this journey.

My encouragement to you is to heal yourself and believe in yourself. Taking care of you is the first step to really taking care of your children. I know you are already a good parent and have what it takes to be the best coparent you can be. Being a parent is the most important job in the world. It is how we treat our children that will determine the fate of the world. What do you want our world to look like in 20 years? 50 years? 100 years? I encourage you to take a stand for yourself and your child right now, begin your healing and begin the journey of life. You can choose to make choices that create hope for your children and for our world.

Shannon R Rios MS is a successful Life Coach and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She coaches parents as a life coach through her life coaching business www.inlovewithme.com so that parents can move forward and create healthy lives and relationships with themselves, their children and others. She is also the founder of www.healthychildrenofdivorce.com

If you enjoyed this article, her best selling book on parenting after divorce and healing after divorce is The 7 Fatal Mistakes Divorced and Separated Parents Make: Strategies for Raising Healthy Children of Divorce and Conflict and can be found here: http://inlovewithme.com/books