Imperfect Parent. 3 Basic Questions For Conscious Parenting

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

The question of what kind of parent am I can be divided into three sub-questions: WHO AM I? (as a person in general) WHAT DO I KNOW? (for example, about child development, its patterns, interaction in the family and the impact on the child, etc.) WHAT AM I DOING? (because who knows, I can do a lot, but in fact do exactly the opposite).

All three questions and their answers describe what I call mindful parenting.

The question is WHO AM I? can essentially be reduced to the well-known saying: “Do not bring up children - educate yourself. Your children will still be like you.” Take an interest in life, love it - if you can make your child fall in love with life - this is perhaps the maximum task that can be accomplished.

Sometimes parents who lead a bright and interesting life, realizing themselves in creativity and profession, worry that they do not devote enough time to the child. Of course, if we are talking about a child under one year old, the presence of the mother, her care, attention, bodily contact are of exceptional importance (for this it is definitely worth taking a vacation), but the older the child becomes, the less he needs to be constantly around. And then the question is no longer about the amount of time spent together, but its quality. You may be around less often, but still be together. Spending half an hour with your child, taking him to kindergarten or school, it is in your power to turn this half hour into genuine communication with each other or into a nervous, vain stay close only physically. You can irritably drag him by the hand, scold him for slowness, or talk on the phone with a colleague, or even think about something of your own without saying a word. Or, on the contrary, you can walk along the road holding a hand, pay attention to changes in nature, to the sky, to birds flying in the sky, share your memories or draw the child's attention to the beauty of details, ask him about today's dreams, fantasies, about what worries him or makes him happy.

And every minute, every hour of your life, you make a choice: whether to be with your child and, if so, how.

D. V. Winnicott, a child psychoanalyst, coined the concept of "a good enough mother." Speaking about him in this context, it is important to emphasize that if you devote yourself only to a child, you do not fully realize yourself and thus cannot become an inspiring example for him (which is especially important as you grow up). If you lead an active life, realize yourself, devote time to your own interests, then there will be situations when the child will miss you. Thus, there can be no perfect parent, and being a “good enough” parent is enough.

There is another important point in this. It is not a parent's job to feed their child for the rest of their lives. His task is to teach the child to feed himself. To be able to take care of your own needs, to satisfy them.

At the lecture I was asked: “What if the child says that he is bored? Do I need to react to this and how? It is necessary to react, but this does not mean that the child should be immediately entertained. There is no such task. But it is important to gradually teach the child himself to find interest and activity in life. While playing with him, develop his ability to notice interesting things, to fantasize, to encourage his games alone (not to interfere with them when he is flirting with himself), I also invite children to guess for themselves how to entertain themselves. Squatting next to the child, I say: “Look, you say that you are bored and you don't seem to know what to do with yourself. Yes, it happens. But I came up with three ways of what you could do now. Can you guess them?”. Such a proposal most often turns out to be interesting to the child, and he includes imagination. And what is remarkable, often starting to guess, he finds more than three options.

The question is WHO AM I? also concerns what personal beliefs, beliefs you have in general as a person. Because often read "instructions for use" and recommendations for education simply do not fit into your picture of the world. If a person by himself is not creative, rational, showing tightness and secrecy, then the lists of rules for communicating with a child, based on creativity and spontaneity, simply do not work. They have nothing to grow on.

Therefore, working with parents, and allowing certain recommendations in our work with them, I still focus on something else - on the picture of the world. And accordingly, if necessary, its correction. That is, first we prepare the soil, and only then we sow the grains.

Working with the parent's picture of the world, answering the question WHO am I? it is important to pay attention to the settings. What beliefs does a person have about parenting? What does he consider useful and unhealthy for the child? What is acceptable and what is not? Why? Where did this belief come from? Does it help or hinder? Is this really HIS belief or that “hot potato” that you get from your own parents, you want to get rid of as soon as possible?

The next key question about parenting WHAT DO I KNOW? Here we are talking about a kind of "vertical" section, knowledge that we can replenish endlessly, theories of concepts, views on the development of the child (sometimes contradictory). Some information is extremely important, some less. Read, take an interest, enrich yourself. But remember that here, as with any gaining knowledge, it is important to include your own ability to think, criticize, think in relation to your own situation. The assumption of the presence of absolute truth is illusory and some kind of unique magical knowledge that would solve all your difficulties with a child does not exist in nature. There is love (namely love, not dependence, neurosis, fear of loneliness, etc.), but love is not knowledge, but rather a position in life. And it manifests itself more through the answers to the third question.

Third question: WHAT DO I DO? What do I do when I am alone in the presence of a child? (reading, drawing, cleaning, sitting in a mobile phone, lying in front of the TV, smoking, doing yoga, etc.) How do I communicate with other people in the presence of a child? (for example, how I myself talk to my parents. And if it is disrespectful, then afterwards it is difficult to expect a respectful attitude towards myself) How do I communicate with the child himself? (I often raise my voice, but require him to speak calmly; I allow myself to hit him, but I am indignant when a child shows physical aggression; I do everything for him, but reproach him for being irresponsible). What parenting messages (often non-verbal) am I giving him? What feelings do I project onto the child?

Question WHAT DO I DO? I refer to the "horizontal" slice of parenting. And it is he who is the vessel that can be filled with further knowledge (vertical cut), but not vice versa. It is this relationship, this logic: first HOW, and then WHAT explains why now, in an age of abundance of information, when books, articles, notes, practical recommendations are poured onto our heads, we are still bogged down in the difficulties of parenting again and again. Moreover, such an abundance of opinions, and often contradictory ones, has the opposite effect - young mothers (and fathers, although they are less often) are torn between one advice and another, between one highly respected psychologist and another even more respected one.

Conscious parenting for me is about having clear basic positions and attitudes. And above all, attitudes towards accepting yourself and your child, the purpose of which is not to achieve some ideal I (the utopian path), but to develop your potential I, to become what you (as a parent) and a child can become at best. As Oscar Wilde wisely remarked, “Be yourself. Other roles are already taken. Be the parent that you can become. Looking for your own joy of parenting: thoughtful or frivolous, calm or temperamental, but always focused on cooperation, respect, acceptance of ANY feelings (yours and the child), realizing, understanding and accepting that we are all different, and your child has come to live on this earth is not yours, but its own life.