As parents, we have our ideas, strategies, habits, and learned methods of supporting our children through both the easy and the more challenging times. When I began my journey into the field of educational psychology, and early childhood education, I was not yet a parent. When I did become a parent, I remember feeling annoyed about the amount of parenting books in stores, and how sometimes, they were even contradictory. In response to my annoyance at the parenting book industry, I even wrote a book based on the most frequently asked questions i received about raising young children. The title was "Empowering Parents: Real Life Strategies for Raising Children." I wanted to add a book about parenting that tried not to prescribe one way to do things, yet was based on experiences with numerous parents and children. I am not sure I achieved that goal, and I know that nothing we do as parents is fixed. When I look at this book now, I marvel that my answers would certainly change with new challenges parents face, and at the same time, some of my answers would remain the same.
Looking back, I know that so much of my profession has been guided by the idea that there is not one way to be a parent. At the same time, there is so much scientific knowledge about children and child development. I consistently think about how we meld solid empirical knowledge together with each parent's style, experiences, values, and learned behaviors.
We all learn and change when we are parents. We zig and we zag in response to our children's different stages, and we don't control all of their outcomes. As a parent of adult children, I have a whole new set of challenges. In her book "The Gardener and the Carpenter", Alison Gopnik writes "the implicit picture of parenting - that your qualities as a parent can be, and even should be, judged by the child you create" truly impedes with our ability to raise our children. Gopnik also states that "the most important rewards of being a parent aren't your children's grades and trophies - or even their graduations and weddings. They come from the moment-by-moment physical and psychological joy of being with this particular child, and in that child's moment-by-moment joy in being with you."
Today I encourage you to take some time to reflect on yourself as a parent, not with judgement or self criticism, but with a different focus. How do you see your role as a parent? What influences might your own parents have had on you? What practices might interfere with finding joy in daily moments with your children? As always, I welcome feedback, questions, and comments on this blog.
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