3 Tips for Being a Happier Parent
“It sucks. Parenting sucks.”
Chances are that you have thought (or said) something similar if you are a parent. Clients have certainly said this to me on a number of occasions. Meeting the demands of parenting is tough, and can leave you feeling more drained than fulfilled. Not only must you juggle multiple priorities at once (attending to needs at home, in the workplace, in the community, within your larger family), but you feel a pressure to juggle with a smile on your face.
Those of us who are not great at multi-tasking can find parenting to be particularly challenging and frustrating. Those of us who are known to family and friends as overly emotional can face the same dilemma. Those of us who are motivated by immediate rewards and demoralized when no obvious reward exists can expect a bumpy ride. Why? Because parenting requires us to multi-task. It requires us to bend and stretch emotionally, and recalibrate (return to “normal”) when we don’t stretch quickly enough and end up sad, mad, or frustrated. And it requires us to do all this without any tangible rewards for our efforts. For many of us, this seems like a Herculean task. It seems impossible to achieve. And for most of us, it probably is.
So what do we do? How do we find greater happiness in parenting? While there is no magic bullet, we can make small shifts that will help. Take a look at the list below, and pick one to weave into your life. Then, add another. Sprinkle these tips into your week, and work towards greater fulfillment and happiness as a parent. And remember…you are not perfect. None of us are. So when you stumble and fall (and you will!), instead of judging yourself, simply take it as a reminder to practice these tips. As a mother of two young kids, I’ll be right there with you.
- Repeat the mantra – “Excellent is the enemy of good”. Resist the pressure of perfection in all areas of your life, including parenting. Perfection is a fallacy, and it also reflects several of the most common thought traps.* Repeat this mantra (out loud if you need to) and shift your image of what success looks like around parenting issues like healthy eating, developing good manners, following rules, and so on. Resist the urge to focus only on the negative by naming at least one area that is going well around that issue or around your parenting in general. As simple as this sounds, it can actually help retrain your brain and be life changing in all realms of your life.
- Put yourself on the front burner.We think we are doing right by our kids by prioritizing their needs while allowing ours to go unattended. Well, this is an example of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. If parents don’t attend to their own needs, odds are that no one else will attend them on their behalf. This does not mean we should be selfish. It simply means that we should avoid being self-less. We can be happier (calmer, sillier, or just more present) with our children if we are mindful of how we are doing and take active steps to recalibrate (bring back to “normal”) our body’s physiological reaction to stress (like increased heart rate and shallow breathing). If we don’t, and we stay aroused (in the bad kind of way), our ability to concentrate and prioritize tasks can diminish and we can become irritable and sharp with our children. Since there are many organic opportunities for us to experience stress in any given day (like due to traffic or work) and depressingly few opportunities to naturally experience relaxation, we must be deliberate about creating the antidotes to stress. The good news is that this does not necessarily mean we have to carve out 40-minutes for yoga each day (although that would be great!). We can simply integrate soothing elements into our daily lives to give us pockets of respite. This can mean turning on Enya (or Aerosmith?) or lighting incense or a vanilla candle, and/or wearing a particular item of clothing, all because these things feel soothing and boost your spirits. The frequency with which you can create pockets of respite seem to be more important than the length of time you are in respite. In other words, 10 minutes of listening to Enya four times throughout your day seems to be better than 40-minutes of listening to Enya once per day. So go ahead, think about what feels soothing to you and consider how much of it you actually do on a daily basis. You may be surprised to notice some immediate ideas for integrating self-care into your daily life.
- Learn to ask for help. Remember the saying “It takes a village”? Well it turns out that this saying actually symbolizes two very significant and profound messages. The first is that we must be diligent about creating and fostering relationships with others who can be a resource to us as we parent our children. “A village” may mean a partner, extended family, friends, day care settings or even neighbors. It does not matter all that much as long as we develop trusting relationships with them and believe their values do not conflict with our own. The second is that we must know when to tap into these resources. Decades of research has shown that when we are under stress, we tend to want to become rigid. We shore up our boundaries and we hunker down, weathering the storms until they pass. What it has also shown is that we adapt better if we remain (or become) flexible instead, and tap into resources in our environment, including those trusted relationships. It figures, right? The one thing our bodies want to do naturally in this case is the very thing that may prevent us from adapting to stressful circumstances. Nevertheless, we must remember that we are all swimming in the same soup. None of us are perfect. Whether it is to simply talk and commiserate, or to request a few hours of respite from parenting to recalibrate, tapping into our “village” can help us become happier and more satisfied in our role as parents.
*Thought traps like should and must reasoning, all or nothing thinking, fortune-telling, mind-reading, and personalizing can lead to a distorted view of our lives and contribute to (or exacerbate) depression and anxiety. A common approach to helping us avoid or escape thought traps is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
Dr. Aysem Senyurekli is a Licensed Associate Marriage and Family Therapist at Rekindle Counseling in Edina, MN. She helps couples and individuals rekindle their relationship health. Learn more about her work, or contact her directly at aysem@rekindlethespark.com or 952-806-0017.