Parents and kids are under so much pressure—time pressure, work pressure, academic pressure—that it’s not surprising there are so many explosions. As parents, it’s easy to feel like a failure. (It’s also easy to feel as though your child is letting you down. This is something to work on!)
When the Going Gets Tough
When parenting gets rough, when your child is unhappy or behaving poorly, it is tough to maintain your own pride and self-respect in the parenting process. Yet your self-respect is essential, both for your own emotional survival, and for the sake of your child. As a parent, I’m trying to teach my child to respect herself, to stand up for her rights and the rights of others. If I don’t feel good about my parenting, she won’t either. Why should she listen to me about discipline—or about anything else?
This Family Is Not Dysfunctional!
With all the current discussion of dysfunctional families in this society, parents (especially mothers) tend to get really slammed. No matter what kind of parents we are. Our reputations are mud. When your child reaches preadolescence, she’ll start being humiliated by the fact you exist—and have to drive her to school in that dorky car. Whether or not this is a normal developmental step (some experts feel it’s necessary for separation), it doesn’t feel very good, and it’s hard to trust and respect yourself when your child, and every cultural message around, says that you’re clueless and embarrassing at best, and destructive at worst. Understanding that these cultural messages exist can help you dismiss them and get on with the important business of parenting.
Tools for Improving Your Self-Respect
Teaching good discipline requires self-trust and self-respect. If you do not respect your own parenting approach (especially on the disciplinary front), nobody, including your child, is going to respect it either. How, then, do you build up your own self-respect? Self-acceptance and self-responsibility are vital to increasing self-respect. Look at yourself for who you are. Change the circumstances that you can change. And give yourself a break. In short:
Give yourself a lot of credit for caring (and reading this book counts!). Be honest about your failings. Ignore society’s negative messages. Think about the kind of parent you want to be (and ignore that ugly little word should). Take good care of yourself. Take action to change and improve yourself, your family life, and the world. Give yourself even more credit for improving! Listen for positive feedback from the world. Since the world won’t always tell you what a good job you’re doing (or give you bonus points and parenting awards), you’ll need to stand in for the world, and give yourself the credit you deserve.
