Parenting is hard. Very hard. Many tell me of their guilt for feeling angry, or for taking a minute to themselves so they can mentally re-group. Their mind immediately goes to “I am a bad parent”. A large part of what makes parents doubt themselves is all of our culture’s ideas about ‘the best way to parent’. Here are some examples: ‘Your child will not be healthy if you bottle feed’, ‘Don’t let your baby sleep with you’, and the list goes on endlessly!
Want to break an old cycle?
Often, parents don’t want to repeat at least some, if not all parts of the way they were parented. They strive extremely hard to do this, and the ‘advice’ they receive causes confusion. They feel that they aren’t doing it ‘correctly’, or at all.
This leaves parents who want to do their best for their children confused, guilty, and anxious. Then self doubt creeps in. All of this makes it very easy to fall into default mode where they end up doing the familiar–what their parents did.
First, I suggest you don’t take to heart other people’s ideas of the ‘best’ way to parent. If you do, you will likely end up feeling guilty because it does not feel right to you. Everyone has their own opinions. For some reason they are sure that their way is the ‘right’ way and they are compelled to make sure everyone knows ‘the right way’
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Changing you and your child’s future
Parenting works more naturally when you are attuned to your child’s needs. People often ask what attuned means. Here’s what Webster has to say: ‘being aware of and attentive to something’. Attuned parenting is being aware of and attentive to your child’s needs.
To do this parents must learn their child’s cues–what they need and what helps them. Are they hungry, tired, sad, etc. All attuned parents have this in common: They are first and foremost aware of their own needs, and attend to them vs. ignoring them.
We often forget that children learn by watching their parents. What you do and how you care for yourself, becomes what your children do and how they care for themselves. You can lecture, demand, and coax your children all you want, but what they remember (and then do) is what they see you do. ‘
So, parenting from the gut, is learning how to attune to both yourself and your child. Attuned parents not only follow their gut about parenting practices. They also seek out experts’ opinions because when their gut tells them they are uncertain they also need helpful suggestions. They also read and learn about some ‘best parenting practices’. This helps them make an informed decision. They take this learning and accept parts of it based on what they think would likely work best for them and their children. In this process they are developing their ‘parenting philosophy’, so when well meaning suggestions are given they can decide if those suggestions fit into their own philosophies
