A few days ago, I was conversing with one of my friends, and she was telling me about a challenge that she was facing as a parent. As we continued to discuss what she was going through with her child, she told me, “Viji, as a parenting coach, I think parenting wouldn’t be a struggle at all for you.” Interestingly, within a span of a few days, I happened to hear very similar views from three other people that I know. Well, to tell you the truth, like any other parent out there, I too struggle with parenting every day. In fact, I am very often plagued by self-doubt about my ways of parenting – if I am doing the right things as a parent. My challenge is as real as any other parent’s challenge.
Let me share some instances. Recently, I was feeling triggered because someone I know said something to me that I saw as disrespect. I was clearly irritated and around that time, my daughter happened to come to me and ask me twice or thrice if I could play with her; and given my frame of mind at that moment, I ended up snapping at her. On other occasions too, especially when I have bad days at work, I tend to lose my patience and shout at her.
When such incidents happen, there is a deep self-doubt that creeps inside me and I begin to ask myself, “Am I being a good parent?” “Will my action affect her self-esteem?”. On certain other instances, I ask myself, “Am I being too lenient and spoiling her?” These kinds of questions where I am doubting myself as a parent are not uncommon in my day-to-day life with my daughter. Parenting is a challenge for many of us. And more often than not, as parents, we tend to get too critical about ourselves because of the high expectations set by the society when it comes to bringing up children.
On a positive note, though, working on Growing Together has helped me have a framework to fall back on in case of a crisis and find the capacity to be able to connect with my child again. Having said that, the parenting strategies I resort to are something that I have to consciously practice every day.
Whenever I am caught in the mesh of self-doubt as a parent, I have realised that there are ways to come out of it and make peace with it. Here are some steps I follow when I am beating myself up with self-doubt and perhaps you would find these helpful as well.
Dropping the self-judgment
The moment I start to ask myself questions like “Am I being a good parent?” or “Am I doing a good job as a parent?”, I pause to notice if there’s any negative self-talk happening within me – inner voices like, “You are a very angry person” or “You don’t have any patience” or “You are overdoing this” or “You are being unnecessarily sad” and so on. When I hear my inner critic, I first drop the self-judgment and turn the statement around to another simple one – which is – “I am just being human.” And being human means experiencing an entire range of emotions including anger, sadness, grief, joy, happiness, surprise, etc. Once I stop judging myself harshly, I remind myself that I am not a ‘bottomless bowl of patience’ and that expecting one to be so is too much for any person. I remind myself that it is ok to be flawed.
Seeing what is the self-care I need
Self-care is a very integral part of my process to handle self-doubt. Whenever I doubt myself, I try to figure out what is the kind of self-care I need that I am missing at that moment. I ask myself, “What is the unmet need of mine that is coming up now, and what are the ways in which I can nurture that need?” This need could be something small (like me being very hungry, which can be addressed in an hour’s time) or something big which I make a note of and work on (like a deep personal baggage that I carry; for example, my need for respect, which can take months or years to process). I have realised that once a certain need of mine is met, whatever it is that had acted as a trigger making me snap at my daughter just disappeared!
Practising rewind, repair and replay
Whenever I snapped at my daughter, I did make a mistake. So each time I do something that impacts her for no fault of hers, I make it a point to apologise to her through rewind, repair and replay. I rewind and acknowledge openly to her that it was my mistake; I repair by telling her, “I know I yelled at you and it is not your fault at all. It’s me not being able to control my anger.” And then I replay by listening and responding with love.
Asking for support
I resort to this when my non-capacity stems from a deep-rooted trauma inside me, making it too overwhelming for me to process it all by myself. During such situations, I reach out to my mentors, therapists, to my partner, my family, and friends for support and help. I look out for resources that can be helpful for me.
Reminding myself that my imperfection is the best gift I can give my child
I tell myself that if I try to be that ideal parent who is perfect in every sense, I am only compounding the burden on my daughter to live up to that expectation I would be setting. Instead, by embracing my vulnerabilities and facing my flaws, I am giving her a message that it is okay to be imperfect. When she actively witnesses me telling her openly that “I am impatient and it’s my fault”, she knows that as humans, it is fine to be flawed. This is the most freeing thought and I can say for sure that I am so flawed and imperfect that my daughter has all the freedom to be imperfect herself! And this, I believe, is a great gift I can give my child.
As parents, we constantly grapple with haunting questions of self-doubt when we bring up our children. The steps that I have discussed above are those that I have practised personally, but they are applicable to any parent struggling with self-doubt. Whenever self-doubt creeps in and I worry a lot about how I am parenting, I try to tell myself that I am doing the best I can, given my resources (emotional, physical and mental) and capacity that I have at that given instant. On certain days, my best is being a goddess of patience for the entire day and on other days, my best is asking my partner to handle my daughter because I have zero capacity. Sometimes, my best is making a delicious and heavy spread for lunch and sometimes, my best is giving everyone a bowl of cornflakes. Sometimes, my best is engaging my daughter in fun activities, playing with her, dancing with her and sometimes, my best is giving her extended TV time so I can extend my nap time. My best changes from time to time and I keep reminding myself that, that is okay. After all, if I cannot be compassionate to myself, how can I be compassionate to my daughter? And how can we grow together? Compassion, I believe, is the antidote to self-doubt and when we are compassionate to ourselves, we can bring that level of compassion in our child. When we do so, it can be beneficial not just for us but also for our precious relationship with our child.
(Edited by Anupama Krishnakumar)
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