POSITIVE PARENTING
tackling
parental guilt GETTING YOUR PARENTING MOJO BACK AFTER HARD TIMES.
by Anna Cole
‘Guilty feet have got no rhythm.’ The longer I work with parents, and the longer I am a parent, the more I realise that we all feel truck-loads of guilt. We instinctively don’t want our children to get hurt. Ever. We ardently wish we could make a perfect life for them. But, unfortunately, we don’t have the power to protect our children from all the hurts we wish we could: the loss of a beloved family member that knocked you, and them, for six; the move you did for work and the dislocation to your child’s schooling; or perhaps you stayed put, but the class bully picked on your child; maybe you got sick and haven’t been able to be there as much as you’d like; perhaps violence or impoverishment in your neighbourhood has affected your child, or perhaps, like many of us, you’ve been through separation or divorce and worry about the impact of that on your child. You will be able to add to this list, I am sure. So here’s the headline: it’s not possible to make our child’s life perfect. And the good news is: it’s also not necessary. Children come with a simple, elegant way of recovering from hurt, which I will discuss in our next issue. Right now I want to focus on what we as parents can do to help ourselves so we can best help our kids. The first thing you need to know is that you have done your best. It’s not your fault things got hard, but it is your responsibility to do something about it. Take your regret to your Listening Partner (for more information on Listening Partnerships and how to find one, see the link in ‘resources’ below). In your Listening Partnership you can cry, tremble, shout and rage about the things you regret. Shed those tears. They are the rain that falls and makes the flowers so sweet in the spring. Share the dark thoughts you have, then leave them behind, and when you start feeling bad again, go back and have another Listening Partnership. You have the right to be
pleased with yourself, and that’s what your child wants for you. They don’t want you feeling awful. They want you to play. They want you to be there with them, present and relaxed. Most often, the voice inside our head that digs at us about our imperfections and screw-ups is our parent’s voice, so you can also go back in your Listening Partnerships and reclaim
“You have the right to be pleased with yourself, and that’s what your child wants for you.” the upper hand you may not have had as a child. Tell your listener: “I am a good person, I am doing my best.” This time around, you get to fight for your dignity. Fight for the precious person you are. Take on the powers that be who judged you and found you wanting. A lot of our contemporary fears and regrets tap into our childhood, when for years and years we lived with adults who didn’t know what to do with their grown-up stresses, and often blamed us for them. Another perspective that’s important to remember is that when we were young and people were hard on us, or scary things happened, the hurt went in, and it stayed. As we become a parent, what happens when we notice that our children have been hurt and we want to help them, is that we may start to think: “Oh my gosh, my poor kid. They’re going to be saddled with this for the rest of their lives.” Actually no, they’re not. That dark outlook most likely goes back to early experiences from your life when you were left alone with your hurts. Using Listening Partnerships, slowly but surely
you can begin to thrive and learn more from your daily experience. You can learn tools that will empower your child to keep working on whatever it was that happened, until they are fully powerful, cognisant, capable, warm human beings. That could take time, but one day at a time is just fine for bringing a child through almost any kind of difficult experience. So the future is promising. The spring flowers look bright. It wasn’t a tragedy that your child got hurt. Yes, it had effects, but it doesn’t have to be permanent. There’s emotional work to be done, and you can build the support to do that work. And life gets more fun as you do. Enjoy the Spring!
Try this: In a Listening Partnership try saying sorry to your child. Tell other people how sorry you are about what happened. Tell yourself sorry. Get silly with your kids over dinner time. Let manners go and instigate a throwingpeas-on-each-other’s-plate food fight. See if tensions melt and laughter rolls. Get from today to tomorrow. It doesn’t have to be grand, showy or magic.
Resources: handinhandparenting.org/article/how-tofind-a-listening-partner/
Anna Cole, PhD is a parent, researcher, writer and educator. She has taught at universities in London, Sydney and Brighton, and is a certified Instructor with Hand in Hand Parenting. She teaches classes, both inperson and online, for parents of young kids as well as pre-teens. You can register for her next online class for parents of pre-teens at: handinhandparenting.org/event/parentingclass-for-parents-of-preteens/
