What Actually Changes When Parents Stop Believing They're Bad
There’s something I notice quite often in therapy...
A parent will tell me about something that happened that week. Something like...
"I shouted at bedtime".
"I lost my patience in the morning rush".
"I handled a tantrum completely differently to how I wanted to".
And then, almost without noticing it, they move from telling me what happened to telling me who they are...
“I’m so impatient”.
“I’m a terrible mum”.
“I should be better at this”.
“I’m failing”.
And often, a really important part of our work is beginning to separate those two things again. Because something quite interesting can happen when a difficult parenting moment is allowed to be just that:
a difficult parenting moment.
You don't suddenly stop getting it wrong
I think this matters...
The goal of the work I do with parents isn't to get them to a point where they never shout, never become overwhelmed or always respond perfectly. I don't think that parent exists.
There will still be mornings when everyone needs to leave the house five minutes ago. There will still be bedtimes where your patience disappeared somewhere around the fourth request for a drink. There will still be times when you respond to your child and afterwards think:
I wish I'd handled that differently.
But there is a huge difference between:
“I wish I'd handled that differently.”
and:
“I'm failing.”
One gives you something to reflect on. The other becomes a judgement about who you are.
You become more curious and less judgemental
When we're convinced that our reactions are evidence that there's something wrong with us, curiosity becomes quite difficult.
We already know the answer.
'I shouted because I'm a bad parent'.
I couldn't cope because I'm not patient enough.
'Everyone else manages this because they're better at parenting than I am'.
Case closed.
But when we begin to loosen that conclusion, there's room for different questions.
'Why did that affect me so much?'
'What was already going on for me before that happened?'
'Why is this particular behaviour so difficult for me?'
'What did I need in that moment?'
And those questions can take us somewhere very different.
Getting it wrong becomes something you can repair
When a mistake feels like proof that you're failing, it's incredibly easy to get stuck in shame...
You replay it
You beat yourself up
You promise you'll never do it again
But none of that actually changes what happened
When we can tolerate the idea that we got something wrong without making ourselves wrong, we have much more space to do something with it.
We can apologise
We can reconnect
We can think about what happened
We can repair
And perhaps most importantly, we can learn from it
You don't have to spend so much energy trying to prove you're good enough
I think this is one of the quieter changes.
If somewhere underneath everything is a fear that you're failing, parenting can start to feel like a constant test...
Every tantrum
Every argument
Every difficult bedtime
Every day you don't particularly enjoy
Another opportunity to find out whether you're doing a good enough job. That's exhausting.
When that conclusion starts to loosen, parenting doesn't magically become easy. But perhaps it doesn't have to say quite so much about you anymore.
Your child can struggle without it meaning you've caused the struggle. You can struggle without it meaning you're failing. You can make a mistake without it becoming your identity.
And I think that creates much more room for the thing parents are often desperately trying to achieve by pushing themselves harder in the first place:
change.
Maybe this is what change actually looks like
Not becoming endlessly calm
Not enjoying every moment
Not finally getting parenting 'right'
Maybe it's being able to have a difficult day and think:
'That was hard'.
Rather than:
'I'm terrible at this'.
Maybe it's noticing you've shouted and becoming curious about what happened rather than spending the evening punishing yourself for it.
Maybe it's repairing when you get something wrong and trusting that the relationship can withstand imperfection.
Maybe it's understanding yourself well enough that, gradually, some of those reactions begin to change too.
That's the kind of change I'm interested in.
Not perfect parenting.
A different experience of yourself within parenting.
If this is the kind of change you're looking for, I've created a free online class called When Parenting Is Draining You.
It's completely free and available to watch whenever it suits you.
It's a place to start understanding what's happening underneath the overwhelm, and why parenting can make us reach such painful conclusions about ourselves.
You can find out more about my parenting support options, or get in touch.
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