Conscious Parenting
5 Tips for Promoting Healthy Relationships With our Children
Parenting is confusing.
On one hand parenting is so natural to the human experience, and on the other hand...what in the world are we doing? If you are a parent I’m sure you have had many moments in which you feel like running out the door and hopping on the first bus to the state line. And then you have those moments that bring a joy to life that you could not have imagined was possible. Parenting is many things. It is difficult. It is exhausting. It is beautiful. It is fun. It is boring. It is fulfilling. Parenting requires more of us than we ever knew existed before having children.
Most of us want to be the best parents we can be, and at the end of the day, we just don’t want to mess our kids up!
If you contemplate any of the above on a regular basis, don’t worry...you are already off to a good start. At the same time, If you are reading this post there is a good chance you may be looking for some additional help in working toward that best version of yourself as a parent. I would like to provide just a few short tips that I have learned from my years of working with parents.
Here is my short list in no particular order:
Know your child. I know...starting off with the obvious. What I mean by knowing your child is to make it apparent to them that you want to know them. What I have found in my work is that at the end of the day, we all desperately seek to be known by this world. We seek to know that we matter. That we exist. This is one of the most precious gifts you can give to your children. The gift of being seen. Seek to understand the way their minds work. Have curiosity about the ways they are similar to you, and even more importantly, the ways they are entirely different from you. At any given moment, you can be assured that there is more to know. Much more. As best you can, remember to embrace the newness of your children everyday. “They grow up so fast.” We often say this in reflection of how fast time can go by, but it is also true on a developmental level. From infancy to about the mid 20’s, our children change before our eyes. Embrace the change. Do not get thrown off by thinking they are changing from the child you thought you knew.
Listen first, give advice second (or not at all). Far too often, I witness parents prematurely move into advice giving or fixing the problem. This is only natural as parents often do know what the best course of action may be on a problem. However, and this ties into the first tip, we can miss important details if we have not fully understood the problem before we move to fix it. We of course want to rely on our own experiences to lend sound advice to our children. This is how knowledge is passed on from one generation to the next. But in moving too quickly we can make a few mistakes. We can misinterpret the true need of the situation and lead our children in the wrong direction. We can take away a valuable opportunity for our children to problem solve on their own. And we can inadvertently push our children away when we signal that we do not truly know them (ie. “If my parents really knew me, they would know that only worked for them and doesn’t for me”). It requires some willpower to fight our reflexive nature as parents to fix our childrens’ problems or to inform them of how they are doing things wrong. There is a degree of “playing the long game” in this manner. Be sure to fully understand the situation as well as your child’s full range of thoughts and feelings on the matter before inputting your own. In doing this you are setting up a far better chance of your advice being heard and followed by your children once they have felt seen by you.
Take ownership. Dispel yourself of the belief that if you take ownership of a mistake, or in some way concede to your child, you are losing your authority as the parent. In fact, it is quite the opposite. I often talk about the importance of therapists being authentic and genuine in their work, and this is especially true with teens. Once children are hitting their teenage years, they have developed pretty keen “BS” detectors. They will quickly know when you are not being honest or taking ownership, and make no mistake, this will erode your authority. Taking ownership, especially when mistakes are made, is a hallmark of good parenting. A true apology delivered on the spot does much to build credibility as a parent. And this doesn’t only have to happen in the aftermath of a mistake. I regularly instruct parents to take ownership of the possible mistake...”I know you don’t agree with this decision, and the truth is your Dad and I do not know for sure if this is the right way to go, but we are making the best call we can and this is our final decision.” Hedging a decision made with this sort of disclaimer may feel counterintuitive as a parent; especially when our authority is being questioned on a daily basis. But telling the truth will win the day. Acknowledging that we do not know everything as the parent, and yet we can make decisions to the best of our ability goes a long way to build trusting relationships with our children, and to model for them what it is to take ownership of decisions.
Focus on emotions without over-focusing on them. The move toward greater focus on emotions and emotional validation in parenting has been long overdue. For many generations emotions have played second fiddle to “rational” thinking. I have a sneaking suspicion though, that we may have overshot the mark in trying to make up for past generations. When it comes to emotions, the focus ought to be on balance. Parents need to balance emotional validation with emotional regulation. What this means is we want to validate emotional experiences so that our children do not feel overly shameful or guilty for having strong emotions, while at the same time not unintentionally creating reinforcement for strong emotions. The aim of the parent is to teach their children how to develop healthy relationships with their own emotions. If we try to stop the emotions prematurely, we can set up a future of repression, denial, rationalizing or a whole host of psychological defense mechanisms that try to subvert strong emotions. On the other side of the spectrum, if we overemphasize emotions and reinforce them we can be setting up a future of uncontrollable emotions, volatility, fragility and seeking validation from others. What I teach parents is to validate emotions within the context of the situation. Practically this is done by allowing for, and validating emotional expression that, to the best of your observation, is proportionally appropriate to the situation. For example, “I know that fall really hurts, so go ahead and have a good cry.” Then as the minutes pass, “Good! Your body probably got all the crying out it needs to, now let's try taking some deep breaths and see if we can get up and walk.” In these simple two steps a great deal of parenting is being done. You are validating your child’s emotional experience, teaching them that strong emotions are ok, that their emotional expression has a purpose, and that it is part of a process that has a beginning, middle and end. Maintaining this posture of balance will set your child up for a lifetime of healthy emotional expression and emotional regulation.
Know yourself. As mentioned at the beginning of the post, parenting requires much of us. There are so many factors at play, countless obligations and responsibilities, and who is there to take care of the parents’ needs? These little monsters get all the care-taking, and we get none! This is of course the burden of being a parent. Knowing how to take care of yourself is crucial to effective parenting. When our emotions get the best of us, we tend to set up more frustrations down the line. Building a strong sense of yourself, of your emotional needs, and how to get your needs met are the cornerstones of good parenting. This goes deeper than simple self care (although important). This requires emotional regulation on the part of the parent at an almost superhuman level. Emotions are there to inform our parenting, but not to lead it. What this means is to pay attention to your emotions as often as you can. Allow them to speak to you, to let you know when something is up. That anger that is telling you to hold the line on a consequence. That exhaustion that is guiding you to make a change in routine to make things less difficult on you. Emotions can be a great compass, but they need to be held by a captain who is steering the ship. I am a huge advocate of allowing children to experience natural consequences to bad decisions and behaviors. And sometimes, a natural consequence of a bad decision is getting one angry parent. So, feel free to be angry! Feel free to express your anger, but stop short of being your anger when you deliver the consequence. It is the difference between an explosion of anger and an expression of anger. An explosion of anger is, “ You idiot, what were you thinking!” as you grab their phone and throw it against the wall. An expression of anger is, “I’m upset and disappointed by the decision you made” said with a tone and body language that communicates your frustration. It is ok to feel negative emotions toward your child when it is proportionally appropriate to the situation. We lose our effectiveness as parents when we express negative emotions to our children that do not match the situation. It is an unfortunate truth that children often become a readily available target for the unaware parent. When we do not know ourselves, and we do not know our emotional needs, we can turn our children into emotional dumping grounds.
This is certainly not an exhaustive list. There are many lessons to be learned in the lifespan of being a parent. At the end of the day, if you are reflecting on your parenting and asking yourself if you can do it better, be rest assured you are already off to an amazing start. You are consciously parenting. Be sure to have grace on yourself when feeling overwhelmed. Remember to treat yourself with compassion, patience, and forgiveness throughout the day. By embracing the reality of parenting we embrace the reality of being human.
