4 hidden barriers to parent fun

How to improve your parenting experience.

As a mother of five children, I regularly engage with parents in a variety of activities involving children. The overwhelming nature of parenting is a frequently discussed topic. Parental complaints often focus on how children are treated, but there are some major threats to parenting that parents mistakenly overlook when they focus solely on their children. Understanding these factors can increase awareness for parents to improve their parenting experience.

1. Too many cooks in the kitchen

From the moment you find out you're pregnant, well-meaning people bombard you with unexamined wisdom about how you should raise your child. A barrage of conflicting advice is pulling parents in different directions, whether it's telling them to hold their baby all the time or not at all, allowing or severely restricting screen time. It may feel like this.

The pressure increases as family expectations increase. Balancing the need to make personal parenting choices with the desire not to disappoint those who give you advice and gifts can be frustrating. This constant push and pull makes it difficult to confidently decide on the best course of action for your family.

Living in the information age makes things even more complicated. Online resources provide readily available sources of information. The difficulty when using the Internet is distinguishing between truly useful guidance, opinion-driven ideas, and attention-grabbing information. Parents often encounter a sea of ​​contradictory recommendations and find themselves struggling to navigate a path that aligns with their own values ​​and instincts.

2. Relying too much on past information.

Every generation views the current generation with concern and skepticism. As a child, and now as a parent, I can't tell you how many times I heard from my elders, “When I was a child, we did things differently.” As a child, I felt those words contradicted my own experiences at the time. If parents are not intentional, they can get caught up in what they learned and experienced in childhood that is no longer relevant, instead of giving voice to the child's current concerns. This can lead to a rupture in the parent-child relationship. Parenting becomes difficult when children realize that their parents are not interested in their lives.

There is nothing wrong with using past information, and it serves as a baseline of knowledge. Difficulties arise when we are not willing to engage with the present and look back to a time that no longer exists.

3. Parenting in an isolated environment and lack of social support.

Parents receive a lot of advice, but modern parenting can often feel lonely. Research often finds increased feelings of isolation and loneliness among parents (Hall et al. 2020; Nowland et al. 2021). Reasons for this experience include:

• The number of Americans living in the kind of close-knit, supportive communities that was once commonplace is decreasing, creating difficult barriers to support.
• Many of us feel that our extremely busy schedules limit our ability to make meaningful connections.
• With a major shift towards more individualism, it feels inappropriate to bother others with our problems.

These factors can leave parents feeling exhausted and alone. As the saying goes, “It takes a village to raise a child.” Nothing could be more true.

4. Some parents give up before they even start.

The adage “parenting doesn't come with instructions” is often used as a reason for not being better prepared. If there's nothing I can do to ensure my child's success, why not just love them and hope for the best? This idea discourages parents early on and often hinders their approach to parenting. Many parents engage in overprotection (overinvolvement in their children's lives) because they know they love their children. The problem is that it can leave individuals ill-equipped and parents can feel embarrassed because they've done everything they should.

These barriers can be overcome. The key is to tackle them head-on.

1. Be clear about your parenting goals and values. Evaluate all advice against it. To do this, we need to clarify this as soon as possible. If you don't know where you stand, it's easy to get swept away in a sea of ​​voices trying to orient you.
2. Focus on the child in front of you and the culture in which they are raised. It is helpful to share your life and experiences. We cannot use those experiences to ignore the current concerns our children will endure.
3. Ask for help and prioritize social support. Social support is the most important aspect of human health, both physically and mentally. An 85-year study on longevity by Harvard University found that relationships are the key to living a long, healthy life. Ignore the pressures of individualistic culture to isolate you and focus on building relationships that fulfill you.
4. Please educate yourself. Parents often try to learn about parenting from a parent's perspective. The focus is often on how to get children to be quiet, listen to you, and follow rules. A better solution is to focus on parenting from the children. child's perspective. Understanding children is key. When it comes to brain development, childhood is light years away from adulthood, and learning about children can help us better serve them. As a result, they will become more sensitive to us.

By addressing these often overlooked threats to positive parenting, parents can raise their awareness and empower themselves to create a more fulfilling and enriching parenting experience. At the end of the day, the key is to be open to learning, embrace each child's individuality, and foster genuine connections within a supportive community.

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