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Parenting Strategy 1:
Have a Plan and Know Yourself
BY ARLENE F. HARDER, MA, MFT
When you bring your baby home from the hospital, it's understandable that your main focus is how you’ll get through the next few months with little sleep. From then on, it can seem that all you're doing is responding to the challenges of your child’s changing needs.
In the rush and stress of your life it is difficult to step back, take a broad view of where your parenting is heading, and consider what it is that you want for your child when he or she becomes an adult. Yet many parents find that parenting is much easier if they have first laid down a blueprint against which they can evaluate both the way in which they interact with their children and the behaviors they support or discourage.
To use that blueprint for success as a coach in The Parenting Game, you'll need one more thing. You'll need to understand yourself.
Knowing yourself is not only an important skill in many aspects of life, it's particularly helpful for parents because, when we are able to tune into ourselves, we can better tune into our children. When we are comfortable with our strengths and frailties, we can better help our children develop a realistic evaluation of their strengths and guide them in overcoming their weaknesses. When we know how to manage our emotions, we will better know how to help our children manage theirs. When we demonstrate love and respect for our partner, we model for our children how good relationships work. When we forgive our parents, we make it easier for our children to forgive us. When we communicate clearly, we are teaching those vital relationship skills to our children.
In other words, the more we are able to be the best we can be, the more we can help our children be the best they can be. But we don't always do our best for our children. Why? I think there are four primary reasons:
1. Everyone has an ego, a temperament and a personality style — and when all of these combine to create parents who are demanding and believe they have to always have their way, or when parents are wishy-washy and allow children to run all over them, there's bound to be trouble in the family.
2. Everyone grew up in a family and no family is perfect — so it's possible you learned some coping styles that won't work well in your new family.
3. Some people have family secrets — and family secrets about alcoholism, incest, abuse, criminal activity, and other topics people try to hide can make it difficult to know how to be open and honest about what's going on within a family, or to get the help you need.
4. Some people have unresolved trauma and loss — and these unaddressed emotional issues can leave a parent without the emotional maturity to handle similar problems with their own children.
An excellent approach to the role you play in problems you have with your child, and even in problems you may have with someone else, is to turn off the automatic pilot that usually runs your life and pay attention to what is happening right here, right now.
The journey of self-exploration does require effort and it does take time, but it only proceeds one step at a time and that is something anyone can do right here, right now.
© Copyright 2005, Arlene F. Harder, MA, MFT
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