How many of you parents out there in the world of parenthood often doubt your parenting skills/style? If this is you, research shows you are not alone. Many parents often doubt their parenting skills/style. The reasons for this self doubt vary greatly. The reasons can also vary second to second, minute to minute, day to day, or more accurately situation to situation.
What do you think the reason/s are that parents often experience self doubt?
If you experience doubt, What triggers it in you?
Comparison is one of the biggest reasons people often doubt themselves. This is true in parenting too. Parents often consciously or unconsciously, inwardly, or outwardly compare the effectiveness of their parenting skills/styles, to that of other parents. Often, parents watch as they observe other parents say things like, “I say jump you say how high, or because I said so” and miraculously, the child listens. Often parents watch in aw when another parent tells a child it is time to leave, and the child gets their things and leaves, no questions asked. Parents are left wondering how those parents got their child to “listen on a dime”, while in the same situation there would be a struggle. When we compare we lose sight of our uniquiness, the uniqueness of our child, and the situation, as it relates to us as the players within it.
The realationship of parent and child is based on a foundation of structure and actions put in place since infancy. Our methods and approach may change over time, as our child ages, but the foundation we lay does not.
Emotions are another huge reason that parents experience doubt. We often take our child’s reaction to our structure personally. Children are smart, they know how to push our buttons. They learn quickly how to “lay on the guilt.” As parents we must be accutely aware of this and try to recognize it and side step it when it happens. Children need and thrive with consistancy. They feel secure when they know what to expect. They won’t admit it, but it some ways they “like knowing what to expect, when they break an agreement(Rule). I use the word agreement it has a more positive connotation then rule. In an agreement all parties are involved in deciding what the terms are.
Another facit of emothins creating self doubt is our own emotions. This is two fold. 1). There is who the events of our day have impacted how we feel. Are we happy, sad, frustrated angry, or feeling content/productive. If we are feeling negative emotions from our experiences of the day. We have a responsibility to ourselves and our child. That is this, we need to be aware that our fuse will naturally be shorter at these times. Therefore, if we get angry with our child for any reason we need to take a step back. This is to ensure that our emotions from our frustrating day, don’t infiltrate our interactions with our child. Parents must do what we can to deal with the situtation at hand, in a calm manner. This will be more effectively accomplished if we do our best to separate our frustrations of the day, with the frustration with our child at the moment. The calmer we stay, the calmer our children stay. they feed off of us. 2. Often we bring our own history, and baggage from our childhood into our parenting. For example, if your parents style of parenting was more authoritarian, “Do this because I said so, and that frustrated you, you may decide to parent with a different style. However, often when this occurs, parents who “change styles,” wind up second guessing themselves, because of the negative reactions or oppions they get from others.
The need for immediate resutls is also another reason parents often doubt themselves. By this I mean that often we fall into the trap of once we discipline for a specific situation, that the situation will not happen again. While this is sometimes the case, reality is that true learning is a process which occurs over time. This means that, even though your child did not like the consquence of their actions (losing video games, cell phone etc.), the behavior will more than likely occur again. This causes self doubt. You as parents have to build up your confidence and realize this is a natural turn of events. It is often NOT a result of parenting styles, but rather a child testing his/her limits. You need to stand strong and firm. They need you too, and are counting on it!!
In conclusion, there are many, and multiple reasons parents doubt themselves. Those discussed in this blog are just a few. The reasons for doubt are as varied as parent and child themselves. There are many factors that create and/or add to self doubt. It is important that we remove as much of our own self doubt, as possible in order to parent effectively.
If you like what you have read, and it resonates within you. Do yourself and your child a favor. Give both of you the gift of removing self doubt, and learning or enhancing Postive Parenting Practices. How? Simple, Register for My Positive Parenting Teleclass seris. Don’t delay register today! You and your child will be SO glad you did. Registration is easy. Go to the home page of this website www.possibilitiesrinfinite.com and click on the registration link. I look foward to meeting, you, and exploring the benefits of Positive Parenting Strategies with you!!