Scared You're Screwing Up Your Children? Join the Club

Maybe it sounds ridiculous, but when I was pregnant with my first child 6 years ago, I didn’t really give much thought to ‘the sort of parent I wanted to be'. I guess if pushed, my idea of parenting was what I had experienced from my parents but I had never taken much time to analyse what I thought about that style of parenting.

Then my daughter was born and I started receiving advice that just, for me, intrinsically didn’t ‘feel right’ and wasn’t how I wanted to parent. I didn’t want to leave her in her cot when she cried out so that I didn’t ‘make a rod for my own back’; I wanted to hold her close as much as she needed.  I didn’t want to distract her when she showed signs of hunger so that I stayed on an ‘every three hours schedule’; I wanted to feed her on demand. I felt ok about her breastfeeding for comfort and to go to sleep at night (until social media scare mongered me in to how she was NEVER going to learn to sleep alone if I did that, but we’ll get to that).

As we moved into the toddler years I didn’t see her meltdowns as ‘tantrums’ of a bad girl that 'didn't know how to behave'. I found them emotionally tough to deal with, sure, and in hindsight I often didn’t handle them as I would objectively like to BUT- I didn’t ever believe she was being ‘bad’. I believed she was dealing with big, big feelings and instead of the time out step, or the silent treatment, as I grew up with, I felt like I needed to be there for her, and try to understand the emotion she was feeling instead of punishing her for it.

And so I started reading, and watching, and learning, as much as I could (I still do). Not just the parenting styles that I feel I lean towards (gentle parenting and secure attachment style if you’re wondering though I can definitely be a helicopter parent if I don’t keep myself in check!).  But a wide variety including reading up on more authoritarian styles and books the likes of ‘French children don’t throw food’.

The Pros of Knowing Your Parenting Style

• I definitely feel like I know the sort of parent I want to be now and have found my tribe!
• On some of the tougher days, and making some of the tougher choices, I have comfort in knowing the ‘why’. Coming back to my oldest who fed on demand and to sleep. At the time I did it because it felt right but I had to deal with such fear of whether I was doing the right thing because I hadn’t read much on the subject. Newsflash! When she was personally, and developmentally ready, we moved to a bottle of milk and being put down awake and she has a wonderful, positive relationship with sleep to this day. She doesn’t fear it, and sleeps well throughout the night, generally speaking. My other child was fed the same as a baby and at nearly three, although I no longer breast feed, she likes me to lay with her until she is asleep (my oldest never needed that). I no longer fear this will cause her problems for life, in fact the reverse, I truly believe I am helping her to not fear sleep, until she is ready to go it alone. That is not to say that I sometimes wish I didn’t have to and would rather another 30mins of Netflix, I am human after all!

The Cons

• I think it is fair to say that sometimes ignorance can be bliss. It can be very hard to not feel like everything you do ‘wrong’ is damaging your child in some way. Your child is a fussy eater? Must be because you spoon fed them instead of baby led weaning. Your child is a late talker? Must be because you didn’t talk to them enough during tummy time! And when it comes to gentle parenting, this requires a whole discussion of its own. I believe I handle 80% of situations better, with a knowledge of gentle parenting techniques. But, the occasions where all the theory goes out the window and I find myself shouting at my children, making them and I cry before bed (in case you can’t tell, yes that’s exactly what happened to me two weeks ago)? Well then that’s when it can be hard not to beat yourself up and feel like you have permanently damaged your child beyond repair. The morning after the aforementioned screaming a poor mum got a big surprise of me crying on her shoulder because she offered the generic greeting of ‘how are you?’ on the school run and I just couldn’t hold it all in!
• Negative clickbait is the devil! With a small thumbnail and title to catch your attention, many social media outlets resort to drawing you in through FEAR. ‘What you are doing wrong’, ‘Top parenting mistakes you are making’. Whilst researching this blog I even found one titled ‘How did your parents mess you up’ and ‘how to not screw up your kids’!! Framing is everything, and it is so very hard not to let this fear and negativity work its way into your mindset.

My advice

• Try to take the lessons without the side of guilt. I know it's easy to give advice like this, and harder to take it, myself included. But I truly, truly believe that parents who are worrying about being good parents, and reading about it, and implementing what they can are already GREAT parents! It’s what we always say to our kids right? That it’s ok to make a mistake, the important thing is to learn from it? Well why don’t we cut ourselves the same break!?
• Look for the coaching, empowering type material and give the fear clickbait a wide birth! It can be hard to do this; a big part of the reason channels use negative and fear-inducing titles are because they feed into our psychology and they WORK! But there are lots of channels out there that don’t play that game and I am gradually trying to work my way through unfollowing any that do and focusing on the channels with the positive messaging I want to see in the world. (I will pop a list of some I’m a big fan of below!)

Conclusion

If you are still with me, still reading then I know two things about you.

1. You are worried that you may be screwing up your children. To that I say, I’m so sorry. That guilt and worry is horrible and something I struggle with, so I see you.

But most importantly I know that:

2. YOU ARE A GOOD PARENT!

Only a good parent worries about being a good parent AND, if you are reading articles like this then you are working on being even better. What more could a child ask for?