Parenting Endurance
Photo by Juliane Liebermann
Parenting: It’s a marathon, not a race
When I became a parent, no one told me how often I would question my own parenting skills. Many said, “Cherish every moment, they grow up fast!” But what if the days feel long? What if some days I need it to “go fast”? Sometimes I just feel tired: physically, emotionally, and mentally. There are many parenting experts and many voices that tell us how to parent from day one. What if sometimes I feel like I need less voices?
If you’re looking for some guidance on how to trust yourself when it comes to parenting and how to be your own best teacher of how to pivot and adjust (sometimes daily) based on your child’s individual needs, here are some ideas of how to quiet those voices and trust your instincts!
(I recognize the irony of a blog post about how to quiet the voices about parenting. Hopefully you’ll stick with me on exploring some ideas about how to look inward rather than out):
Understand that behavior shaping (in contrast to behavior directing) is time consuming and inconvenient.
One critical aspect of raising children is behavior shaping. This includes building a relationship with our child that establishes trust, setting up our home environments to be safe and predictable, and using reinforcement to guide our child’s decision making.
But even with all of these strong foundation pieces in place, our children are unique individuals who make their own choices.
It’s true. Our beautiful children, young and old, will choose the most inopportune times to try out and understand boundaries. If you see their experimentation with boundaries as having curiosity about the world and less about testing you personally, you will approach the boundary “testing” with an affirming and welcoming posture rather than defensive. When a child or teen sees a boundary and experiments, this is an opportunity to practice life skills on repeat.
Emotional awareness and regulation happens best within a safe relationship and with a lot of practice. When we set healthy, reasonable boundaries with children and then walk with them through their disappointment or frustration, we are preparing them for a world that will regularly tell them “no.” With time and practice, their “resilience muscle” will grow stronger and they will learn to process their emotions about a world that lets them down.
Nurturing, shaping and guiding takes time. If you are able to remind yourself of that on a regular basis, you will be able to make your lens on parenting bigger and less microscopic. Rather than focusing on, “How did today go?” or, “How did my child behave today?” your perspective may shift to, “How will the lessons today impact their thoughts, behaviors and actions tomorrow (and the next day, and the next day…)?”
Model and listen rather than lecture.
“We have done this task over and over, why don’t they just DO it!”
Dr. Becky Kennedy has a metaphor for how to switch your thinking from correcting or lecturing to focusing on building and modeling skills.
Imagine that your child is learning to swim for the very first time. Do you scream at them to get in the pool and just DO it? Of course not. We don’t say things like, “What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you swim?”
We are patient with them. We understand that it’s a process. We recognize that to learn to swim, they have to both learn the skills AND gain the confidence. We know they need a lot of practice.
We also recognize that even when a child begins to swim independently, they are not ready to be unattended in a pool. If my child has graduated from the “little swimmers class,” I will still sit by the side of the pool and diligently watch them. Until my child is confident, skilled, and understands the gravity of swimming responsibly, I will stay by the pool as their support system. For as long as they need, I will patiently be there.
Perhaps your child has learned the mechanics of the bedtime routine but still needs your help because their emotions on ending the day and going to bed are heavier than they can carry alone. Your child will require more time and patience as they work through the emotional aspects of the task far beyond when they have mastered the ability to brush their own teeth and change into pajamas.
When we catch ourselves lecturing and shaming, such as, “Why can’t you ___?” and, “We’ve been over this so many times!” and instead shift to, “My child is not fluent in this skill,” we can usually take on an attitude of showing, teaching, and modeling.
When something goes “wrong,” look inward rather than placing the blame on your child.
Do you apologize to your child when you have messed up? Do you catch yourself mid-sentence and change your tone or soften your words? Our children are watching us and learning how to adjust, adapt, make mistakes and own it.
When we circle back or acknowledge that something didn’t go quite the way we wanted, we teach our children about how mistakes work.
If we can approach parenting challenges by considering how WE can best address them, we may begin to see that our child is lacking certain skills, needing our support in different ways, or attempting to communicate a message to us that we have been missing by focusing on the behavior.
And finally, when you are overwhelmed by the conflicting messages from “parenting experts,” don’t forget to check in with yourself. The goal: to be the best parent that YOU can be. That will look a bit differently for each of us!
In Rob Bell’s audiobook, Launching Rockets, he talks about raising children as being like preparing a rocket for lift off. After years of carefully and intentionally preparing for a safe lift off, the rocket will, in fact, lift off. The moment of lift off is the moment that we have been working toward all this time, and we are left with the hope that our preparations were enough to point that rocket in the right direction. Thankfully, that rocket is doing what it was designed (or born) to do!
For more tips and resources, check out the following:
Parent-Child Interaction Therapy:
PRIDE: Skills Based parenting
https://www.youthranch.org/blog/pride-skills-building-strong-bonds-through-skills-based-parenting
Dr. Becky Kennedy
This blog post was written by Josi Garcia. Josi is the Co-Founder of ZimZum Consulting Collaboration. She is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst, holds a Masters degree in Special Education, and has experience working with schools and families supporting individuals with special needs.