Parenting

Parenting. The hardest and most rewarding job you will ever have! No matter if you’re expecting your first child, already have one child or five children, your parenting style will greatly vary from others and that’s okay. Society tells us that we need to be the perfect parent at all times. Well, that’s B.S., no parent is perfect! I want to reiterate this again, NO PARENT IS PERFECT and never will be! Your responsibility as a parent is to unconditionally love, support, protect, teach, and provide for your child, that’s it. These all sound very simple but can be very complex.  

For this article, I am going to focus on the parental responsibility of unconditional love. Unconditional love, loving your child for who they are, no matter what. So how do you accept your child unconditionally:

• Appreciate your child’s unique characteristics - While some traits may be more desirable than others, it can be helpful to view these traits in how they can be strengths for your child. For example, if your child tends to be stubborn and argumentative, you could view this as your child being persistent. When viewed as persistence, you as the parent can help your child learn how to control and improve this characteristic as a means to meet their needs and goals. 

• Acknowledging the loss of what you imagined your child to be - When you have a child, we all have dreams of who and what our child will be. Maybe some of those dreams are accurate and other times they are not. For example, maybe you wanted a girl and instead had a boy or vice versa. It is okay to grieve this loss and feel your feelings about these dreams. Once you can let it go, then you will be able to focus on who and what your child is and embrace it. 

• Try to put yourself in your child’s shoes - All misbehavior is a signal from our child that they need parent’s help. It may be that they need help figuring out their feelings or maybe they have an unmet need. I can guarantee if you address the underlying issues and not the behavior, you will see a positive change in your child.

• Managing your frustrations - Remember, unconditional love is loving your child for who they are, no matter what. If your child even senses there are requirements for your love, this could be detrimental to them. Kids drive us nuts, they push us to our very limits at times. I’m sure you’ve been that parent whose child runs away from you at the store, whose child argues with you in public, whose child lies to you, or whose child that won’t eat their chicken nuggets because they taste different even though they’re the same chicken nuggets they’ve been eating for the past seven years! As parents we need to calmly and assertively set boundaries, use healthy coping skills and model appropriate behaviors even when we’re being pushed to our limits. 

It’s not easy being a parent, trust me, I get it, I’m a parent myself. Remember, NO PARENT IS PERFECT. If you’re wanting to build on your already awesome parenting skills, please consider scheduling an appointment so we can discuss. 

Sources:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/peaceful-parents-happy-kids/201403/5-secrets-love-your-child-unconditionally