Parents teach in the toughest school in the world – The School for Making People. You are the board of education, the principal, the classroom teacher, and the janitor. – Virginia Satir
Parenting Is One Of The Toughest Jobs You Will Ever Have
The majority of parents learn their parenting skills through their own childhood experiences, through watching friends with kids, or through the media. Few parents take classes or read books on how to raise children because there is a cultural belief that we are innately born with the parenting gene and that with the birth of a child it will naturally come to the surface in all it’s perfect glory.
It’s A Steep Learning Curve
Unlike other jobs where we are oriented to the duties, trained, and mentored, parents have to jump in head first and ready to go. The learning curve is very steep and riddled with little time and energy to reflect on the process.
I experienced this with my first, and then second child, only being mostly confident in my parenting by the time I had my third. I was tough on myself with my first and really believed that parenting was just supposed to know. I did read some books and found some practical information helpful, though found that what was lacking was a mindset for parenting. These books provided a lot of technical tips and skills, such as how to change a diaper, how to check for a fever, and when and what to feed your child. What these books lacked, was how to care for yourself as a parent. They didn’t speak about how critical you will be of yourself and how to manage those self-doubts. And they also didn’t touch on the importance of reaching out for emotional support when needed and EVERY TIME it was needed. What they didn’t speak about was mindset.
As I moved up the ranks in the parenting ladder I learned that mindset was everything. The best baby gadgets and discipline strategies can only get you so far if your mindset is not aligned with the type of parent you envision yourself being. How do you know what type of parent you want to be, you ask? A helpful exercise is to not start with the parenting characteristics that you don’t want as part of the Parent-You and instead start with identifying the values that you do want. Patience, kindness, loving, supportive, forgiving, a good listener, a good role model…
Take A Moment
- Make a quick list, either to yourself mentally or on paper. What values are included in your Parent-You?
- Now, go an extra step deeper and consider your life’s stresses that get in the way of these coming to the surface. Take a moment and make a quick list, what are they?
Work obligations, financial responsibilities, relationship struggles, health challenges, emotional and physical fatigue, limited emotional support… Did you realize that you are carrying many things on your shoulders? How do these get in the way of each of the Parent-You values you listed? If just 1-2 of these stressors were no longer taking control, wouldn’t your values be more free to play a part in the Parent-You? If a good friend you care about came to you with the same list of stressors while at the same time continued to be overly critical of her/himself as a parent, I am sure you would point out all the ways they are succeeding as a parent and how much they love their children.
Building Your Parenting Mindset
So show yourself the same kindness and compassion, because once we as parents can be more patient, kind, loving, supportive, forgiving, a good listener, and a good role model to ourselves then the like mindset will follow in how we parent our children.
- Go back to your list of parenting values and identify your actions that will lead you closer to those values. Identify 1 action you will start doing, 1 action you will stop doing, and 1 action you will continue doing.
- Pay attention to these three as you move along your day and week, setting an intention each day to start, stop, and continue.
- Notice and reflect on your progress with kind objectivity, and if you have a parenting partner ask for their feedback.
- Take it in and remember that parenting is a process.
DOWNLOAD the free parenting mindset worksheet.
I regard (parenting) as the hardest, most complicated, anxiety-ridden, sweat-and-blood-producing job in the world. Succeeding requires the ultimate in patience, common sense, commitment, humor, tact, love, wisdom, awareness, and knowledge. At the same time, it holds the possibility for the most rewarding, joyous experience of a lifetime, namely, that of being successful guides to a new and unique human being. -Virginia Satir
