The Difficulties of Being a Parent
A child arriving into the world is a wondrous thing. But often times we are not prepared for how life changes. A lack of sleep, a lack of time, a lack of enough support can make us feel depressed and anxious and stressed beyond anything we thought possible. Our struggles to get pregnant, our struggles with pregnancy and traumatic births can all add significantly to how we feel. I will outline some of the more common issues below.
Children are not born with an understanding of how to sleep through the night. This is something that needs to be taught. As a psychologist, my children should have been perfect from the moment they were born. I had read the books and knew what the literature said...but I found myself walking my son around my coffee table, in a sling, with a dummy in his mouth with the vacuum cleaner on for white noise, for hours and hours every week. Then, when he was finally old enough to sleep in a cot on his own, I patted his back for at least an hour each night. If he noticed my move away from him before he slept, I had to start again. It was exhausting. The anxiety of wanting him to be okay - he was slightly premature and did not thrive as a baby, was unbelievable. And, the books might tell us that we are creating problems we will have to unpick later on unless we get them sleeping in a bed, on their own in the dark, but I wonder if those that wrote the books have ever been sleep deprived. Sleep deprivation means we will do anything to go back to sleep, so we end up sleeping in a chair with white noise and of course we know it is not ideal but at least it is sleep.
Evolution increases anxiety when we have children. It makes us more hypervigilant to danger and has helped our species survive. So on top of sleep deprivation, we feel anxious. And we go from having time to ourselves to no time at all. If we are lucky, we have some support but heightened anxiety and exhaustion do not bode well for relationships, so often times couples argue.
As children grow into toddlers, they need to learn how to keep safe, about right and wrong and don't understand the importance of eating their greens when cake tastes so nice. They don't know how to control their emotions and can be fine one moment and screaming with anger the next. When we are the parent of a tantruming child, we might assume everyone is looking to us as the problem - why cant we control our child? Why are we such a bad parent? We might begin to see all of the well behaved children around us and assume that the problem is in fact with us. However, the majority of parents can identify with what is being said here and a child that tantrums is in a space where they feel allowed to tantrum and there is a lot to be said for that.
When children are old enough to go to nursery or school, morning routines can be exhausting and end up in a shouting mess before piling children in to the car for the school run. It might be that your particular difficulty is that your children will not get dressed alone, remember to do things, such as eat breakfast or brush their teeth, without being told numerous times. It may be that they become easily distracted and you find them with the paints out just as you need to leave to make it to school on time.
The evening routine can be just as hard. After-school clubs, playdates, homework, snacks, dinner, bath, bed time and then arranging everything for the following day. The tasks are never ending. To have to deal with a child who wants to do none of this makes the situation a lot harder.
It may be that your younger children don't seem to understand the meaning of 'no' and are constantly testing you. They may not want to share and hate their siblings. You may be sick of repeatedly asking your child to do something and ashamed when your child has a full-blown tantrum at the school gates. With older children negotiating social media, screen time, homework and sleep can be a daily battle.
And the toddler eventually grows into a teenager. The teenage period is a time of intense emotions and the transition from being a child to being an adult is rarely a smooth one. Many of the behaviours of teenagers baffle and exasperate parents.
It may be that your teenage child wants to be an adult and do the things adults do without any interference from Mum or Dad. It is difficult to find the balance between allowing them to make mistakes and learn and keeping them safe.
Parenting can be the best of times and the worst of times. All parents struggle and all parents make mistakes.
My top tips for parenting are as follows:
Love your children unconditionally.
Give yourself a huge pat on the back because being a parent is not easy.
Rather than criticising yourself for mistakes, try to think about what you have done well.
If you behaved in ways that you were not proud of, think about how you would like to behave in the future and put a plan in place to behave in the way you want to.
Forgive yourself if you get it wrong - we all get it wrong and to admit to that and discuss this with our children can help them to understand that it is okay to not be perfect. Saying 'sorry' helps your children make mistakes too.
Try to set clear boundaries and stick to them.
Praise your children when ever they do anything well and especially when this involves a behaviour that makes your life easier.
Try to understand how your own experience of growing up might be impacting on your parenting style.
If you feel your parents did not care enough, do you over compensate by giving up your life to be a caring parent?
Did one or other of your parents make you feel like you were not good enough? Do you feel like your children think the same? Children can say some awful things to their parents. A confident parent will brush this off as normal. A parent lacking in confidence, may find the words of their child crushing and believe they are the truth.
If you experienced a trauma in your life are you hypervigilant to that happening for your children and stifle their growth because of your fears?
Remember that the way a child will succeed is if they feel good about themselves, so, returning to number 1 - love your children unconditionally. They may not be perfect and they may not get it right but that is a normal part of being human and if they can feel your love they will be happy and find their way, eventually.
If you are thinking about therapy, then make sure you find someone who has the expertise to help you. Ideally, this would be a psychologist or therapist who has worked in a CAMHS service in the NHS. At Dr Stuart Psychologists have highly trained CAMHS psychologists as part of the team. Please do be in touch if you would like to understand how we can help to navigate this most difficult time of life.
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