The Reality of Imperfection
Many years ago when I first started helping parents manage their children’s behavior I would remind them that, “there are no perfect parents.” I would also try to encourage parents by reminding them that in therapy we were attempting to, “shoot for the stars” so that if we landed “in the clouds” after therapy had concluded we had still made significant progress. Although my words were backed by good intentions, great research, and sound professional practice it was still missing something…the empathy of being an “imperfect parent” myself.
It was not until I became a new parent and fumbled through multiple parenting decisions, felt the weight of parenting exhaustion, and many days “shot for the stars” but landed on the PAVEMENT that I truly understood and empathized with the need for extending myself grace as a parent.
Life changing parenting
Parenting is transformational, painful, frightening, overwhelming, and utterly joyful at the same time. It tests your limits to often be kind, patient (VERY patient), enduring, nurturing, and logical. However, it can also be isolating because you rarely immediately know how your actions have impacted your child until you later see the outcomes in your child’s behaviors, actions, and/or emotions. As a parent you are constantly wondering, “Did I handle that well?” “Was that in my child’s best interest?” “Did I just ruin my child by making that decision?”
I have many parent friends who are also psychologists and we share with one another the perpetual state of uncertainty you live in as a parent and how nerve wracking it is. We often joke that it is probably worse when you are a parent AND a psychologist because you know to much research about child development, child behaviors, child psychopathology, and parenting! However, I can also understand how easy it is to make many mistakes as a parent when you don’t have “the rule book” (there is actually no such thing!) for parenting.
The Goal In Parenting
My child as a toddler
I believe that the most we can do as parents is put our best foot forward…daily. We have to embrace the idea that we are going to screw up as parents and that it is just a matter of life. Our goal is to pick ourselves (and our children) back up when we have made a mistake (or many mistakes) and figure out how to keep navigating our path as parents.
One of the best things I have discovered about parenting is how humble you can become. You have the opportunity every day to witness your imperfections and realize just how little you know about many things in the the world. If you are courageous and humble at the same time, parenting has the ability to make you a more resilient person with more grit. Also, if you are courageous and face your imperfections as a parent head on while seeking solutions to refine yourself, you can actually raise a pretty awesome kid or set of kids.
Parenting Challenge
I challenge you to reflect on an area where you have been tough on yourself as a parent and then give yourself some grace to be imperfect. You are not super mom or super dad, you are actually quite human. So the next time you have a day where you have raised your voice to loudly, became exasperated, lost your cool, or made one of a thousand parenting blunders, reset and try again tomorrow or the next several tomorrows (smile). Parenting is not about perfection (that is not achievable), it is about refinement.
