It seems like parents can never get it right. It makes me sit and wonder: how did my parents manage to raise such an awesome kid? Just writing this made me blush.

I actually don’t know if my parents did a good job. It’s for other people to decide. I can, however, be objective about other people’s parenting and there are two people whose results I adore: Beth and Sam from the Biting Lemons podcast and their three children.

While living with them, I closely watched how Beth and Sam parented their children. Like many people — guests, visitors, friends, teachers — I wanted to catch them red-handed performing some sort of witchcraft that so effectively moulded these wonderful children.

Was it in the food? Did they give them special supplements, not your usual Vitamin C, Calcium and Magnesium?

Was it in the content the family would choose on TV in the evening? Definitely not, we watched an entire season of Married at First Sight UK together (if that counts as a documentary).

Was it in the music? Drum & Base blasting in the kitchen during dinner prep? Well, hell yeah, it’s part of it, but the genre is not of relevance so much.

Was it in the Southern Spanish or the English air? Nah, those two areas offer very different conditions, which implies no correlation.

No matter how much I squinted my eyes in suspicion, I never saw anything unusual in the environment; nothing tangible; nothing that I could see and say: “A-ha! So that’s your secret!”.

I noticed, however, subtle guidance, mindsets and behaviours that Beth and Sam fostered that I can shortly summarise as: allow your children to be children but trust that they can be part of the world of adults.

This branches out into the ten pillars I had never managed to put into words, but that they so well list and discuss in the Biting Lemons special episode.

1. Nurture the assurance that they are in charge of their own lives

If you ask any given parent to name the number one responsibility they have towards their children, they’d probably think of: to protect.

Protection, however, is not to be confused with being overbearing and control over another person’s life. Even with good intentions, these “acts of kindness” are not compatible with raising children that are confident, safe and brave.

Why? Let’s take the simple example of ‘let them wear what they want’. If your child wants to mix and match the most atrocious combination of clothes, just let them. That’s not a fight worth having at 7am.

What would you be protecting them from? Embarrassment? They don’t have that yet and they will have plenty of opportunities as teens to squirm in embarrassment and refuse to wear “uncool” clothes.

What you would be creating if you allow them, however, is much more valuable: the assurance that they have a choice and that they are in charge of their lives.

As they grow older, that awareness translates into:

• taking accountability for their actions;
• decision-making skills;
• confidence in how they carry themselves in the world;
• less fretting about insignificant details that might burden them too much and limit them in their decisions;
• understanding that, just like they are in charge of their life, others are in charge of theirs → less worrying about how others live their lives or whether they will accept their help.

2. Be personally aware and observant

As Sam says, “children are like sponges”: they absorb behaviours faster than one might like them to.

I have never been a fan of the phrase “Respect your elders”. I respect everyone by default, but I refuse to allow age to determine a hierarchy and allow someone older to have power over me. Respect should be mutual and the idea that an 80-year-old person should not respect a child makes me want to steal that elder person’s laxatives.

Parents risk getting blinded by their age and forgetting that they are not immune to making mistakes or exempt from apologising. I tingle with pride when I see a parent say “I am sorry” to their child.

At the end of the day, parents are also living life for the first time and growing up alongside their children. We don’t suddenly hit a certain age, pop out an offspring and stop learning.

Development is never-ending and always new in every stage of life, so being personally aware and observant is not desirable: it’s vital to having a good and equal relationship with one’s children.

3. Sharing circles

Beth is right when she says she would talk about sharing circles to anyone who listens and I am grateful to their family for introducing me to them. Now I am also cursed to talk about them to anyone who’d listen, but that’s just because they, at the same time, excite, terrify and enrich me.

What is a sharing circle? This is a weekly practice in which a group of people, usually people who live together or often engage with each other, such as a family, flatmates, community or a work team, sit down and take turns sharing what is alive in them.

It might be something that happened to them that week and the feelings it stirred; it could be a general sense of being in that moment; it might be a future event they foster certain emotions towards in anticipation.

The idea is that every person gets to share, without interruption from others. Then, it’s the next person’s turn. Questions and feedback are only welcome if the person speaking wishes to hear them.

The objective is not to fix someone, but to make them feel less alone in what they are experiencing.

I shouldn’t have mentioned that it terrifies me. You are now probably unsure whether you’d like to participate in something like this, if it’s terrifying — such a negative emotion.

I am glad I allowed myself to be terrified, because sharing oneself and being vulnerable is terrifying, but that doesn’t make it harmful.

Do you know what the best thing about a sharing circle is as a beginner? You don’t need to say anything. You are encouraged, but not obliged. Many children, as Beth and Sam say, feel shy or don’t know how to express their feelings at the beginning.

Simply sitting them in that environment of people being honest, listened to and cared for slowly builds in them trust and openness.

I ended up LOVING sharing circles, even if I wasn’t always up for one. I also admit that I had to learn that not everybody wants fixing and that I don’t always need to have an answer ready to their worries. What this taught me is not only how to be vulnerable but also how to truly listen.

It is never too early or too late to introduce a sharing circle in your family, but the earlier the better. You might still only have a baby on your boob, but don’t fear including them, as they nibble at you.

4. Trust children to listen to hard conversations

This is a tough one and I know many will disagree. I myself am not sure where the limit is.

Do you share everything? I guess the question is more how you do it. What language do you use?

Sam and Beth admit that they would not regulate what was being said in sharing circles when their children were younger. They wouldn’t ask: “Oh, John, could you please not share about how your husband cheating on you has made you feel?” Instead, they would trust that the adults in the circle would simply use language that is appropriate for children.

John would, hopefully, not go into details about the position in which he caught his husband with a lover.

We underestimate children far more than we should. We assume their small bodies mean small understanding, small emotional range, small capacity to hold difficult truths. But children are astonishingly perceptive: they listen with their whole selves. They notice tone, tension, pauses, the way adults look at each other when something heavy is being carried.

So when people ask, “Should children hear hard conversations?” I think the real question is: “How do we speak so that truth becomes digestible rather than damaging?”

When we shelter children from everything, the short-term comfort becomes a long-term cost. They grow up without the muscles needed for difficult conversations. They become adults who panic at the sight of someone else’s pain, not because they don’t care, but because they were never shown how to sit with it.

Then, something inevitable happens: The people who once seemed invincible — the parents, the superheroes, the adults who made the world feel safe — eventually reveal their humanity. They struggle. They falter. They need help. If a child has never been allowed to witness vulnerability, they won’t know how to respond when the cape finally slips.

5. Give them structure and routine

Involve them in family and domestic life and make it fun.

First and foremost, routine provides a sense of safety, especially at a young age. They will have plenty of time to go break their heads, stay up on energy drinks and unleash their inner beast in university.

Early on, however, routine is the familiar home environment. To the disappointment of children, this includes chores. To the dread of parents, this means allowing them to make irreversible mistakes like mixing white and red laundry and turning your favourite shirt pink.

Invite them to sit around and help with whatever they can during dinner prep time. Play music, encourage them to ask questions and they will get interested. If they don’t, they are still part of it and part of you.

Otherwise, you invite ignorance — yours and theirs.

Teach them how to not only help, but be an important element that keeps the family structure whole. Beth and Sam, for example, have a cooking rota and they’d eat whatever unsavoury meal their children prepare to show them that dinner that particular night wouldn’t have been possible without them.

Routine also gives you bonus points as a parent when you create an adventure outside of it on a weekend!

I have to get a bit feminist here, though. For children to believe that everybody, truly everybody, is involved and has a responsibility in maintaining the routine of family life, both parents need to put an effort. As Beth says, no child should grow up seeing their mother slave around for everybody’s comfort.

6. Shadow work

We go into deeper psychological waters here. To raise conscious children, they need to be aware of parts of themselves that linger in the unconscious.

Shadow work is working on the parts of yourself that you often don’t see but others do. Shadow work is a team project, because you need people around you to rely on to tell you what traits, behaviours and attitudes they notice in you that might remain hidden for you.

The way Sam and Beth use shadow work as parents is by asking their children if they are open to hearing something they’ve noticed.

“Are you open to a reflection?” they’d ask.

It’s important to choose your timing wisely. A child that is tired, agitated or just back from school might not be ready to hear you. Nothing needs to happen immediately. Try in the evening when you notice them more relaxed.

What they need to remember is that they cannot postpone hearing the truth about their behaviour forever. The earlier, the better.

And if I may add one little important detail: don’t make your children feel like they are in trouble. Hearing the question above can either sound like an invitation or a threat. Children will always be more prone to absorbing the truth if it’s the former.

7. Teach them to lean into challenge and adversity

I cannot stress how vital this is to children’s self-regulation skills and how they will handle obstacles as adults.

It’s a tale as old as time: there are so many benefits to be discovered in challenges, even if they are not something you can immediately see and touch. Children who are not aware of that will not be able to sit with discomfort and get the best out of it.

But in order for them to lean into challenge and adversity, they need to…

8. Welcome the full experience of being human

…in all its pain and glory.

At the end of the day, what’s better: feel like shit or feel like shit and enjoy it?

In more gracious terms, if you constantly run around trying to fix how your child is feeling, they will learn that everything can be fixed… when it cannot. All things pass, that’s true, but something passing is different from something getting fixed.

Instead of teaching them to expect divine help, teach them to sit with discomfort, ask if they want to change something and guide them.

Of course, as a parent you want to see your children thrive, but there are moments, particularly with adolescents, when they just have to experience negative emotions that you cannot do anything about: heartbreak, bad grades, failure, stress, etc. All you can do is create an environment where they know they can come to you and be heard.

9. Let them choose what person they want to be

Many parents have a certain idea of who their children should grow up to be. Not only in terms of the career they’d choose, but also the type of people they will be. Kind? Funny? Unbothered? Relaxed? Resilient?

Rarely do parents think of allowing their children to choose that. I absolutely love the example Beth gives in the podcast and I genuinely hadn’t thought of it: asking your teenager, when they grunt and choose to be grumpy, whether they want to be this person or that person.

Give them an example of what it means to be one or the other, guide them but don’t impose. Trust that what you say will stay with them and that they will make the right choice.

10. Be aware of power dynamics

A parent naturally has power over a child’s protection, but it’s important to differentiate between mutual respect and rigid dominance that navigates every aspect of a child’s life.

Sam’s example in the podcast with their youngest reflects what it means to have power over someone: to restrict their choices, to impose authority rather than lead with it towards connection, to oppress without giving an explanation or a chance for the child to make a choice.

In the long run, under the weight of power over during their childhood, a person inherits the belief that every structure in which they are involved (workplace, marriage, friendship group) has a hierarchy where the person with more agency determines where the wind blows.

Besides power over, there’s also power for and power with. The former is when a parent supports a child’s growing independence and capacity to do things for themselves, while the latter involves cooperation within the family (like in the case of routine).

A good parent knows they have much more agency than their children: strength, height, weight, the ability to decide what happens next. But the difference between using that agency and weaponising it is everything.

Children learn what power means by watching how it’s held. If it’s used to dominate, they grow up believing that every relationship has a top and a bottom. If it’s used to guide, they learn that power can be shared, softened, and directed toward connection.

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