Help Your Child Develop Healthy Belief Systems Before & After Age 7

My oldest son, Maverick, turned seven last week. The age of seven is such a significant number in human development that his birthday left me with a feeling of both relief and timid curiosity.

We know from neuroscience that our main belief systems about the world and how we view ourselves in it, as well as our subconscious programming, are all created by the time we are seven years old. These beliefs, whether we see the world as good or bad, loving or scary; whether our authentic self was seen and heard or denied by our caregivers; whether we were modeled to value our inherent worth or tie our worth to pleasing others, achieving, care-taking, or accumulating; whether we were taught to feel and express our emotions or hide and numb them; whether we were loved unconditionally or shamed into being a “good kid”… all of these beliefs are firmly imprinted into our neurons by age seven.

It is also by age seven that we have developed the one core false belief, or lie, that we believe is true about ourselves: I am unlovable. I am too much. I am alone. I am not good enough. I’m not important, etc. All of these false beliefs are untrue, of course, since we are born whole, divine beings. But our child brain had to make sense of the world with caregivers who were doing the best they knew how to, but were mostly unconscious and emotionally out of tune with themselves (thus out of tune with the emotional needs of their children).

A lot of my work with clients is spent deconstructing these false belief systems that were given to us by our caregivers and culture, or that we created in order to gain love (thus safety) before the age of seven. From age seven onward to our death (unless we do personal transformation work to rewire our brains), we live in a pattern that supports the lie we believe about ourselves.

This is something the psychology world calls confirmation bias: the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs. With confirmation bias, our life experiences keep showing us that the false beliefs about ourselves are true, so the patterns become deeper engrained in us. It impacts how we show up at work, in our marriages, as parents, and with our extended family and friends in our 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond.

I obtained my Conscious Parenting Coaching Certification when Maverick was five years old. So his developing mind experienced a lot of my unconscious ways: Giving him time-outs rather than connecting in; seeing his behavior as “bad” rather than the expression of an un-met need that I could support him through; thinking that if I looked at him with enough anger and shame when he was acting out, he’d make better choices; wanting him to behave a certain way – not be too loud or too jumpy or too rough (even if it wasn’t authentic to him) – so I could look like a perfect parent in front of others; projecting my unfinished emotional work onto him and not seeing that my reactions to him were a mirror to parts of me that still needed to be healed.

It breaks my heart to think of what I put Mav through before I knew better. And also, I am so grateful that he has been one of my greatest life teachers (and I’ve been blessed to study with some of the best!) I’m also extremely grateful that I learned how to be conscious and significantly changed my ways while he was still young and had some critical brain development yet to do.

My husband, Mike, got on board as well, because, as he put it, “This conscious parenting stuff really works!” He willingly learned through my examples and we have regular open discussions and feedback for each other on how we can do better.

I know that for the rest of Mav’s life, Mike and I will need to stay very present and emotionally balanced in order to support Mav in un-doing the belief systems our unconsciousness created in him, as well as the conditioning our cultural institutions impose on children around gender roles, “success,” wholeness, sexuality, and more.

Mama, if you’re still with me reading this newsletter, I want you to know that you are right where you are supposed to be on this human journey! As are your children. Whether your children are younger than 7 and still have their child’s brain to develop, or are older than 7 and have their core beliefs already in place, if you’re reading this right now, you have those seeds of consciousness planted within you.

Don’t fret about the past and how you may have affected your children. Impacting our children’s belief systems is inevitable, even for the most conscious among us! It’s part of the human experience. Remember, that the past is over and done and there is nothing you can do about it besides learn from it. Instead, focus on the present and what you DO have control over.

Keep doing the work. Keep learning more so you can do better. Keep bringing more awareness to your thoughts and actions. Know that in doing so, you are positively affecting your children, whether they are 5 or 35 years old.

Stay the path. I’m right here with you.

I HONOR YOU!

Lots of love, your coach,

💖

Sara

P.S. Ready to get support to implement conscious parenting, relationships, and high performance? Book an exploratory 25-minute coaching consult with me HERE.

P.P.S. 🥳 Happy birthday Mav!! I love you so much! 🥳