Who Educates Parents? A Mindful Guide to Raising Kind, Secure and Confident Kids

By Žilvinas Svigaris

Learn Parenting from Real Family Stories

 

In this book, Žilvinas Svigaris, a well-known philosopher and dad, brings together his educational background and two decades of hands-on parenting to offer readers a deep yet easy-to-understand view of raising kids. Drawing from his extensive educational background with degrees in Computer Science, Economics, and Philosophy from Kaunas University of Technology and Vilnius University, Žilvinas melds academic insight with the practical wisdom of real-life parenting.

He challenges old ways, sets up new family traditions, and promotes a home where everyone gets along.

 

 

Create a Calm and Understanding Family Life

 

This book helps you create a calm, understanding, and united family life. Even though everyone in Žilvinas's family is different, they've managed to make their home a place where everyone gets along well. The book is filled with personal stories, lessons from his children, and insights into the ups and downs of parenting.

 

Key Themes Explored in the Book:

• Building Family Traditions: Establishing family traditions is a cornerstone of nurturing a supportive and cohesive family environment. Žilvinas delves into the importance of these traditions, from simple daily routines to annual celebrations, and how they contribute to a sense of belonging and stability.
• Children's Perspectives: One of the unique aspects of this book is the inclusion of children's viewpoints. Žilvinas's children offer candid insights into how they perceive their parents' efforts, providing a fresh and often eye-opening perspective on parenting. These reflections help readers understand the impact of their actions and decisions from the child's point of view, making it easier to connect with and support their children.
• Learning as a Family: Education plays a crucial role in the Svigaris family, and Žilvinas emphasizes the value of lifelong learning. He explores various educational stages, from early childhood to higher education, and discusses how to support children's academic and personal growth. Through real-life examples, readers can learn how to foster a love of learning and adapt their educational approaches to meet their children's evolving needs.
• Growing Independence: Helps you teach your kids to be independent and caring through understanding and respect.
• Solving Problems Together: Offers ideas on how to deal with family disagreements by working together.
• Changing with the Times: Discusses how to change your parenting style in response to societal changes and individual family needs.

 

From Our Family to Yours

 

"What makes this book special are our children's perspectives, offering candid views on our parenting. We aim to provide valuable suggestions and serve as an example, recognizing every family is unique." – Žilvinas Svigaris.

 

Immerse yourself in stories and practical tips on keeping peace, building friendships within the family, and tackling projects together. This book is more than a guide to parenting—it shows the real challenges and victories in raising a family.

 

Whether you're just starting out as a parent or you've been one for a while and are looking for new ideas, this book has valuable knowledge and lasting advice for everyone. Join Žilvinas and his family on this memorable adventure and get inspired to create a caring and supportive home.

 

Get Your Copy Today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Žilvinas Svigaris
• Release date: Jun 29, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227035585

Book preview

WHO EDUCATES PARENTS?

ZILVINAS SVIGARIS

COAUTHORS:

DAIVA SVIGARIENE - Mum

VITAS SVIGARIS - Son

IEVA SVIGARYTE - Elder daughter

ELIJA SVIGARYTE - Younger daughter

Copyright © 2024 by Zilvinas Svigaris

All rights reserved.

No part of this book titled "Who Educates Parents?" may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws. By doing so you support writers and allow them to continue their craft and publish books for every reader.

Published by Shea Publishing

sheapublishing.com

Acknowledgments

When it comes to publishing a family book, I want to express my deepest gratitude to every family member for this true labor of love.

To my parents, thank you for your unwavering support, which I will always treasure.

I want to thank my devoted wife for her patience as a mother to our three children.

⁠I'm immensely grateful to my children, who inspire me to see the world with fresh eyes.

I love you all.

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Žilvinas Svigaris

Dr. Žilvinas Svigaris is a devoted father with a diverse academic background in Programming, Economics, and Philosophy.

Dr. Žilvinas Svigaris is a Co-author of Preeminence of Myth and the Decline of Instrumental Reason, Ecology: Welcome Home, and Neoliberalism: Perspectives, History, and Criticisms. He explores philosophical hermeneutics, ontology, phenomenology, and comparatives. He organizes academic conferences and actively participates in various education projects.

Table of Contents

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1:  THE MIRACLE OF CHILDBIRTH

What does a newborn bring?

First impressions

Creating coexistence

CHAPTER 2:  CONSCIOUSNESS- RAISING

What does consciousness mean?

The question of values

Social hypnosis

Solving problems together

Children's opinions

Innate abilities

Do I need it or want it?

Reading books

CHAPTER 3:  RECOGNITION WITHIN  THE FAMILY

What do children want?

Dinner conversations

Recognition

Freedom

Care

Collaboration

CHAPTER 4:  SCHOOL

What we learned in school

Motivation to learn

The teacher

Profession and talents

Suzuki School

The conscious disciple

The joy of learning

CHAPTER 5:  THE WORLD OF THE FUTURE

What accelerates change?

The question of happiness

The importance of experience

Personality formation

Sharing community

FINALLY

REFERENCES

REVIEWS

Foreword

Every stage of life is interesting and unique in its own way, but the most exciting time in our family started with the birth of our children. Now that two of our three children are already at universities, we look back on two decades as if after a long and unforgettable trip. We can calmly reflect on what was most important, what we didn't dare to recognize before. This book is based on real-life experiences. We summarize what we have learned from our discoveries and mistakes. While sharing our experiences, we discuss how we questioned established norms and created our own ways and guidelines. We don't believe our experiences will apply to everyone because every family is unique, but perhaps we may provide some good suggestions and serve as an example.

What our family wanted most was to have a good time together. We were trying to understand how we could blend our unique characters with all of us being so different. So, in this book, we tell exciting stories and discuss the discoveries that made our family life easier. We share how we created family traditions and an environment where it feels good to be together. We learned how to maintain a peaceful atmosphere suitable for all of our family members' growth. We tell stories of how we built friendships between children and parents, ones that shaped our world of shared experiences. No togetherness is possible without sharing the same experience. We share how we learned to build a vocabulary that helped us better understand the most important nuances of being together. In addition, we tell stories that show that being together is the most enjoyable when family members work together on joint projects.

We wrote this book with our children, engaging in lively discussions on all the issues until we came to an agreement. Therefore, our children also share their childhood memories, comment on different life situations, and sincerely reflect on their own attitudes toward their parents' wisdom in this book. Surprisingly, they often see situations in a completely different way than we had imagined. Most of all, we are delighted when a good-natured dialogue of equals brings us together into a harmoniously sounding joyful whole, where everyone is equally needed, accepted, and loved.

Introduction

The idea of writing a book about our family life was born in Nida. It was on a calm morning of an autumn weekend. The breeze, carrying the scents of the sea and the pine forest, was chasing away the last fog of dawn and the remnants of summer cobwebs. The sun's gentle rays peeked through the wide windows of the hotel restaurant. The magic of the sound of the piano was in the air. We sipped our morning coffee and enjoyed the peaceful surroundings. Suddenly, all the magic was shattered when a young family with a crying four-year-old burst into the breakfast room. The child was screaming something, which we soon understood was, I want to go to the playground! Apparently, the issue was already deeply rooted, because the mother insisted that the child would only be allowed to go to the playground after eating breakfast. Pulling on her sleeve, the child showed with all his being that he was not going to back down either. However, the mother won. She triumphantly sat the child down at the table and spread butter on his bread.

The breakfast performance appeared quite comical. The funniest part started when the mother remembered that protein is essential for a child's balanced diet and tried to get the child to take a bite of an egg. She kept trying to make the required diet seem more desirable by making promises that the child would be able to play afterward. But the child was not stupid. He seemed to be familiar with these tricks and tried to escape from his mother's grasp, arguing that he urgently needed to go and play. Mum, unwilling to give in, decided to make it a team effort and involved the dad, who was also dutiful. He kept trying to reinforce Mum's wavering authority by presenting various punishment scenarios. The child cried louder and louder until finally he just started screaming.

Soon, another family came down for breakfast. Three again: Mum, Dad, and a small boy. This family’s culture was clearly based on a different model. The mother, talking to the father, approached the breakfast buffet and, as if by the way, beckoned to the child, saying, Can you choose something here? The child nodded and calmly loaded his plate with hot porridge, carefully poured honey on it, and examined the variety of bread while Mum went to make coffee. This boy was very different. He sat down at the table, eating as an equal with his parents, completely oblivious to the crying and threats echoing from across the restaurant. He had a quick breakfast and ran off to play in the playground. Meanwhile, the first table was still full of pitiful sounds, intensified by the threatening voices of his parents.

We wondered how such different families are formed. Why do some children become independent, sensitive, open, and loving, while others are rude, stubborn, and uncooperative? Could it be that they are born that way? Perhaps, rather, their parents raise them that way? However, the parents were once children, too. How is it that, when one grows up, one does not remember what one understood as a child? Why is it that so often the best intentions, the most tender moments of togetherness, turn into something miserable?

For us, the story of that early autumn weekend in Nida gave us some inspiration to reflect on our own decades of raising three children. We started by jotting down notes; then, we had a lively discussion with our children, and after a few months, our collective insights became this small book, which we first shared with friends. Our initial readers gave us lots of positive feedback and encouraged us to publish it. The book helped us to answer the main questions that had been bothering us: How can parents know how to raise their children? What trains parents to be parents?

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CHAPTER 1:

The Miracle of Childbirth

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CHAPTER 1:

The Miracle of Childbirth

WHAT DOES A NEWBORN BRING?

Raising and educating our children was undoubtedly the most important project in our lives, with all other events being rather secondary. In other situations of life, it is possible to keep a certain distance, for example at work, where there is always the criterion of interchangeability. However, in a family, each member is unique and irreplaceable. Whatever other things change, parents are always parents, and children are always children. So, the family project has definitely been the location of the strongest experiences for us. We didn't want to disappoint either the children or ourselves there. However, we have to admit that when we saw our firstborn, we had no idea of the magnitude of the changes that awaited us.

Mum: When our son was born, his eyes first caught my attention. They were so dark and deep that I could hardly look at him. It was not the gaze of a small child but of someone more profound than me. This gaze penetrated me to the depths of my heart and was far more than I could have expected. Even today, these memories are powerful and so alive. The little one didn't cry but looked calmly and attentively. It seemed that he was trying to tell me something with that look. There was a feeling in my heart that he knew better than I what he had come into this world to do. Looking into those eyes, I realized that this was a new birth, not only for the child but also for me as a mother. I remember well the confusion I felt inside, wondering if I would be able to raise my son well.

The birth of a child, as Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote to his friends, is the greatest joy a person can experience on Earth. We can add that the birth of a child changed the most significant things in our lives. It seems like such a simple thing, but it changes everything. The relationship between a man and a woman changes so fundamentally that previously shared experiences fade away like stars in the night when the sun appears. It seemed to us then that, when a child is born, the parents acquire a level of concern that has an intensity that is many times greater than anything the person has ever experienced before. We became responsible for something that demanded our full attention immediately and without compromise. So, dreams of enjoying freedom, independence, and personal desires evaporated in a single moment.

Although we loved our little one with all our hearts, we wished only the most beautiful moments for him, but in reality, situations were not determined by pleasant feelings but by life's circumstances. Only now do we realize how short-sighted we were in imagining that everything would remain the same after the birth of a child, but with the addition of a