You'll Rarely Hear THIS from Parenting "Experts"

“Do you have any parenting advice for us?” - this is a question I regularly get when I’m out with friends or acquaintances who know or learn that I am a positive parenting educator. 

Somehow, many parents expect to hear that there is a “right” way to parent - that they should be doing something or another.  Or they want to know the current trends based on the latest research.  Even if a huge part of them still believes that parenting should be the most natural and instinctual thing that we do.

The expectations of parents today are HUGE.

There is more pressure on parents these days than ever before. 

Just walk into a bookshop or browse Amazon and see the extensive titles in the parenting section.  How on earth are you supposed to decide which is the best one for your family or do you just attempt to read them all???  How many parenting books do you have sitting on your bookshelf?

Or Google anything parenting related and you’ll find pages and pages of parenting advice from experts, mommy blogs and well-meaning journalists.  How often do you find yourself surfing these websites and reading articles for ideas on how best to parent your kids?  Perhaps that’s even how you came across this article….

Or when your child “misbehaves” in public, do you feel like all the other parents around you are watching, looking to see how you will react and what you will do in that moment?  Do you feel judged no matter what you do or say?  Even if no one really is watching, often we feel like we have several eyes upon us.

The thing is, I don’t know a single parent that hasn’t picked up at least one parenting book, read a parenting article online or asked other parents for advice.  It’s part of the current parenting culture.  Especially when you don’t have extended family nearby, when those relationships aren’t close or if you are still nurturing your own wounds from the way you were raised.

The explosion of information on parenting and the availability of this information is mind-blowing and can almost be paralyzing.  After all, with so much (often) conflicting information, how are you supposed to know who or what to trust?  What’s advice is going to work?

As a positive parenting educator, I have read A LOT of parenting books and articles.  I totally know how much conflicting information is out there.  Some of it is incredibly useful.  Some of it I personally disagree with or feel that recent scientific research has proven other methods to be “better”.  And I do feel that a lot of the parenting “noise,” on the internet, especially on social media, provides useful comic relief for parents who can relate to the everyday family situations often portrayed. 

The thing is, as a positive parenting educator and coach, there are definitely strategies that I would say have been proven by scientific and social research to bring out the best in your child.  And there are other strategies that have been proven to not be so effective, or even have some damaging and unwanted effects on our children.   

Obviously, when I give talks, run workshops or generally speak with clients, I promote those former strategies that are grounded in research and proven to be effective.  And trust me, there are LOTS of these amazing strategies that can transform the way that you parent your child and have a profound, positive effect on your child’s self-belief, self-esteem, and behaviour.

Despite this, when prompted to give just ONE piece of parenting advice, here’s my most frequent response:

No matter what you read, what your friends or mother tells you to do, or what you hear from any parenting “expert,” you need to parent your children in a way that works for you and your family.

Every parent is a unique individual, with their own history.  We each come to this role with our personal experiences and personalities. 

And each of your children is their own, individual person with his own temperament, personality, and experiences. 

So, often, one parenting approach that works for one of your kids might not be so effective with your other child.  Or a strategy that works so well for your friend might not go down smoothly in your household.  Or maybe, an approach that a parenting expert recommends feels so far removed from the way you currently parent that you can’t imagine bridging the gap between the two.

Here’s the thing about parenting:

Not only do you come to it with your own UNIQUE take on the world, your own history, family culture, and personality.  You also bring to this role all your deep-rooted FEARS. 

All your unhealed HURTS and SHAME from your own childhood and past. 

All your HOPES and EXPECTATIONS for who and what your child will BE and BECOME.  For the OPPORTUNITIES and EXPERIENCES they will have or will avoid having. 

This “set of stuff” that you have as a parent can run pretty deep.  And it is totally unique to you.  And if you are co-parenting, your partner will have their own set of stuff to throw into the family mix.

So, how do you wade through all of this stuff and find a clear path? 

Start, by being honest with yourself. You are not your mother, your best friend or your son’s best friend’s mother.  You are YOU.  What fuels your parenting approach is different from what fuels theirs.  Know that in parenting, there is very little that is truly “wrong” to do.  Because you are almost always acting out of a place of love or protection - a place of good intention. 

You are doing the best job you can with the experiences and resources you have.

But even when we have the best of intentions and are acting out of love, sometimes we know there is a better way to react to our child or behave as a parent. 

Sometimes we realise that we have unintentionally shamed our child, criticised them, judged them, belittled them, made them feel bad for doing or wanting something or just made them feel bad about themselves.  Or that we’ve just behaved like a child ourselves.

Often we do this because of our own deep-rooted subconscious programming.  We get frustrated, annoyed or triggered.  Sometimes we do this because we ourselves are in a bad place - we’re tired, emotional, resentful or have other unmet needs. 

If this happens, forgive yourself.  You come with baggage and are imperfect.  That’s okay.  What is more important in parenting is to be a role model for your child and make amends to repair the relationship.  To let them know that you are not infallible and that what matters more than the mistakes we make is how we deal with them afterward.

What the parenting “experts” will rarely tell you is that parenting is all about context.  It’s about your own personal and family context.  An approach that might be right for another family might not be right for yours.  Or a strategy you use for one child might be different from the strategy you use for another.  You need to make these little judgments all the time - to know yourself, what is in your control to do and to know your child. 

If you are striving to be a peaceful, conscious parent but you’re currently super explosive, then realise that you’re on a journey and that journey will take time and look different to the journey of other parents around you. 

Or, if you’ve found parenting easy with your first child but your second has come along and rocked your world, realise that you may need to adapt your parenting strategies for this second child - it’s true that one size does not fit all. 

Or if parenting has been relatively “easy” until now and your child has hit a stage in their development or life where you need some extra support in order to be able to better support them, know that it’s okay to ask for help. 

Yes, a lot of parenting IS natural and instinctive.  But good parenting skills and strategies are learned - like any other important life skills. 

It takes learning, practice, experimentation and time to develop and really embed good life skills into our daily habits.  Often you will need to work through a lot of your own history. To break free from your past baggage that might be driving your fears and expectations for your own children in order to readily access new parenting strategies.  And that too might take some time and effort.  That’s okay. 

This is YOUR parenting journey.  It’s your process and unique context.  Own it.  Empower yourself to be the parent that feels right to you.  There will always be someone else with a different approach, advice or judgment.  But remember that they have their own personal context. 

This life is yours. Be the parent your child needs you to be.