how-to-self-reflect-as-parent

How to Self-Reflect as a Parent

Leave a comment

This year, as we move towards self-improvement, not every goal is managing our chronic illness. I know that some of my secondary, unwritten goals are to be a better parent to Jai. Self-reflection is still essential, but how do you self-reflect as a parent? What are some of the crucial steps or changes you should make? Are there any changes that need to be made?

Parenting is one of those areas where there is no right answer.

Each person has their own style and belief, and because there’s this instinct built into the process of parenting, it’s hard to move beyond the hardwiring. But as with everything in our life, we should take a moment to reflect on how we parent.

Who am I as a Parent?

This is the number one question to start asking yourself: who am I as a parent? Am I gentle, unstructured, helicopter, snowplow, fighter jet? How does this style of parenting impact my child? Do I walk away from each interaction feeling positive about how I handled the situation or do I feel like I lost control?

Take a moment and be honest. Self-reflection isn’t easy and the answers to those questions may be difficult. But remember, it’s never too late to make changes to your parenting style.

If you have a partner, ask them how they see you as a parent. You’ll want them to be honest, so while you might get defensive by what they say, try to be open. The truth can be hard to hear, but it is the only way to reflect on the changes that you want to make.

Take the time to write down all that you come up with about your parenting style and abilities. Separate the positive aspects to your parenting with the negative aspects.

Read More
Advertisements
Kids as Self-Improvement Motivation

Kids as Self-Improvement Motivation

Leave a comment

Monday, I talked about not using children as your main goal for self-improvement. Instead of working towards being a better parent, figure out why you struggle with the aspects you want to improve and work on that instead. Improved parenting becomes a secondary benefit when you feel better about yourself. So when I say, kids as self-improvement motivation, it feels like I am taking a step backward from Monday’s post.

But I’m not.

Because children are a part of our daily lives, they can also be a part of our motivation. Seeing your children born and grow may motivate you to become healthier to live longer. Or they reflect behaviors that you do but know needs to change. Their appearance in your life may be enough for you to say “I need to make some changes!”

With that in mind,  kids can work as self-improvement motivation.

A Clarification: Parental Responsibility

Before I go any further I need to make some clarifications and disclaimers to contextualize the rest of this post.

Your children are not responsible for motivating you. They do not create or affect your happiness or ability to succeed. Only you are responsible for yourself and your behaviors. Things in your past may influence your current behaviors, but you are responsible for your own actions. Therefore, your children are not responsible for your ability to make and achieve your goals.

What I do suggest is to use their natural behaviors and inclinations to achieve your goals. If you have a toddler it’s near impossible to keep them still, so if you want to exercise, try to take advantage of their energy.

Jai loves to exercise and run around the house. One of my short-term goals this year is to do more yoga. Why not combine his need to burn energy and my need to practice? Using his natural need to expend energy as a means to motivate me to exercise is using him as a motivator. I am placing no expectations on him, no responsibility, he doesn’t even know that he is helping me out.

Likewise, if you are looking to de-stress and improve how you react to your children under stressful circumstances, do not expect them to behave any differently. Look at how they react to you when you react to them. Sometimes seeing a look, that look, that they give can be motivating enough to work harder to avoid getting it next time.

You are placing no expectations on the children, no responsibility on them to help you through your journey. The only responsibility your children have in this journey is being their own, individual person, enjoying their childhood, and reaping the benefits of the work you do for yourself.

Read More

Self-Improvement and being a parent

Self-Improvement and Being a Parent

2 Comments

Type “parenting & self-improvement” in a search engine of choice and you’ll come up with thousands of blogs, articles, and studies on ways to improve your parenting. But what about a separation of the two concepts? Self-Improvement AND being a parent? That’s something I want to examine in today’s post.

For some, it’s because of our kids that we decide to take the time to become a better person. I know that’s what I did. I want to examine the importance of taking the time to focus on ourselves with the end-goal of becoming better parents. Any self-improvement we do for ourselves will help improve our abilities to be a parent for our children.

As I discussed last Monday about happiness, if you want to improve your parenting, consider making the end-goal not about your parenting but about yourself.

Make the Journey About Yourself

Type in “ways to improve parenting” and many of the sites to pop up are ways to be a more active listener, be patient, and take time to get to know your kids. All of these are fantastic suggestions, but hard to sustain if the work behind a lack of listening, patience, or communication isn’t addressed internally.

In this year of wellness, if you are a parent, make the journey about yourself first and not about improving your parenting.

If one of your goals (discussed in last week’s newsletter) this year is to improve parenting, this isn’t me saying you need to reconsider your goals. Rather, I am suggesting that you consider the reasons and alter your perspective before going any further.

If you focus too much on something that will deepen your frustration, if you find that you aren’t meeting your benchmarks, you will get frustrated. Frustration leads to discouragement and possibly giving up before achieving your goals.

Therefore, make this journey first about yourself and about your children second. If you’ve done air travel or seen it in a movie/TV – remember what the flight attendants always say: take care of your oxygen mask first before helping anyone else, specifically your children.

If you aren’t able to help yourself, it’s going to be very hard to help your kids. 

So if a goal is to be a more attentive parent, ask yourself what might be at the root of that? Make the answer to that question your goal for the year. Quick to snap at a child? Focus on your anger or negatively associated feelings with yourself instead of saying “raise my voice less towards my children.”

Read More

Toddler Life Lessons

16 Comments

This post was originally published August 2018.

Toddlers are too young to understand deep, philosophical lessons. They are too young to understand moral quandaries. They are too young to really grasp right from wrong.

As parents, we know that just because they can’t understand it, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be taught. I feel like this is a “no, duh” moment many parents are saying to themselves right now.

Yet an issue I run into as I parent Jai with Ash is knowing what lessons to teach and how best to teach them. Questions I ask myself on a daily basis: is this something worth correcting Jai on? How do I correct him, with a warning or straight to time out? Should I follow the mainstream recommendation or go with my instinct?

A mentor once told me years ago, well before I met Ash, that you are never truly prepared to have a child. So if you want to have one, you have to just jump in and learn as you go. It won’t be easy, but the payoff will be worth it in the end when you have a functioning, well-adjusted adult that wants to have a relationship with you after they’ve moved out of the house.

But in order to achieve this, I have to begin training Jai to be polite, thoughtful, a good listener, able to share, and comfortable with adults as a toddler. The list is a bit longer than that, but those are the main concerns I have on a daily basis with a toddler.

As I am training Jai, I have to be mindful of several things: I’m an adult, what battles to pick and being humble throughout the whole experience.

Read More

Passing Compassion Along

1 Comment

This is the second week in a 3-week series on parenting observations. Week one is based on gentle parenting, week two is about parenting with compassion, and week three is about parenting with a disability.

These posts are based on my personal experiences as a parent and are not meant in any way to judge other parenting styles or decisions. I am offering my personal research and conclusions as possible suggestions for others out there, therefore these posts will be as objective as possible. When it comes to parenting: provided the method isn’t abusive, there really isn’t a wrong way to parent your child. Be secure and do what works best for you and your family and ignore outside judgment.

This post was originally published February 2018.

Incorporating compassion towards yourself and your little one will naturally lead to raising a compassionate child, but there are other ways to work compassion into the daily routine. There are a lot of great suggestions out there from various parenting websites. I’ve pulled a list together of my favorite suggestions that I want to incorporate with Jai as he grows up and as reminders of what I can do on a daily basis for myself.

Nota bene: This post will be using the universal “you/second person” pronouns throughout, so while it may not speak to your experience directly, it may apply to someone else you know.

Compassion is Nurture not Nature

For some children, compassion appears to be inherent, but for most of us, it is something that needs to be taught either by adult example or via life lessons. To best ensure a child becomes a compassionate adult, it is important to teach compassion as part of the growing process. Age of the child (or adult) does not matter, it is something that can be trained at any point in life.

Compassion is not fundamental to being human, but the greater compassion (and self-compassion) a person has, the greater their personal success both personally and professionally.  More than self-esteem, teaching compassion will increase a child’s ability to successfully navigate the world. Increased self-esteem is secondary to compassion in most cases, though it follows closely behind.

Therefore, teaching compassion will be helpful in making the world a better place on a macro-level, but on the individual level for your loved one. The world becomes less harsh, not because of rose-colored glasses, but because your little one does not take adversity personally and takes it in stride. When bad things happen, they are viewed as lessons for growth and not personal insults to their being.

Read More