Mastering the Craft of Parenting
July 20th, 2011
By Blake Edwards, MSMFT, LMFT, Family Problems Topic Expert
Click here to contact Blake and/or see his GoodTherapy.org Profile
“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”
-James Baldwin
In families exist beliefs, expectations, and habits that go almost unnoticed, nearly invisible forces that stir thought, emotion, and behavior into patterns. A sputtering flow of anxiety is felt to a greater or lesser degree that sets in motion our styles of handling stress.
This sort of chronic anxiety is passed along from generation to generation. Developing awareness of our own anxieties and impulses allows us to grow beyond them, allows our beliefs and behavior to become differentiated from them. As awareness increases, so does our capacity for choice and self-direction.
As a parent, I often find myself stuck in a rut of acting and reacting in patterned, anxious, and impulsive ways, ways that are unduly controlling and simply unhelpful. When we fail to acknowledge the ways that we find ourselves acting at the whim of our own anxiety, we also limit our capacity for continued growth and development as a parent and as a person.
Developmental psychology has long understood that two fundamental drives are present throughout our lifespan: attachment and autonomy. Therefore, as parents, we have a responsibility in relationship with our children to nurture safe and comfortable closeness (attachment) as well as safe and comfortable distance (autonomy) through our parenting behavior. It is when problems arise that we so readily experience that generational anxiety at work within us. For many parents, the immediate reflex toward problem behavior is to reign it in by setting limits. Balanced parenting requires exerting appropriate control while simultaneously acting in loving ways that instill courage in our children to act in spite of their own anxieties and impulses.
When our own behavior as parents is entrenched in anxiety and impulse (knee-jerk parenting behavior), how will our children learn anything more than to act out of their own? I describe this mire that we become stuck in through an acronym: moodiness, impulsivity, resentments, and excuses.
When knee-jerk emotion (moodiness) and behavior (impulsivity) define our parenting, the result over time is destructive interactions and a stunted development of critical self-soothing capabilities in our children. Of course, they then pass along this inheritance to the next generation.
When our unresolved or leftover issues from the past (resentments) spill over into our parenting behavior in the present, the aftermath of such transference often creates barriers and inflicts wounds which perpetuate new resentments, a heavy weight of anxiety carried as baggage into the future.
And when our knee-jerk defensiveness (excuses) result in that instinctive fight, freeze, or flee reaction, we do nothing more than sabotage what may be good intentions to transfer values and vitality. Instead, they may simply transfer more-of-the-same cycles of conflict and distance.
Our parenting behavior, instead, should stir confidence, connection, and character. It should nurture both attachment (closeness and belonging) and autonomy (independence and significance). When we as parents move toward a more balanced approach to our relationships with our children, even small changes can result in significant alterations in beliefs and thought patterns, mood and emotions, social decision-making, habits and problem behaviors, and the overall tone of family relationships.
Effective parenting relationships are truly a craft to be mastered. I am prone to acronyms. Here is one to describe the parenting craft: confession, responsiveness, affection, forgiveness, and truth-in-love.
When we take ownership over our own anxieties and impulses to control, expressing vulnerability over volatility, a confessing parent models responsibility and authenticity. There is something powerful about confessing our sins to one another that has power to resolve anxiety rather than escalate it.
A study of marital relationships by Dr. Ted Huston of the University of Texas at Austin has shown how “responsiveness” leads to more fulfilling and durable bonds. I believe that a responsive parent, a parent willing to change course in the midst of a power struggle in ways that promote understanding, empathy, and peace, is a parent who will enjoy a more fulfilling and durable bond with their children.
Affections are the active ways that we show we care. In fact, they are an integral part of the way we literally provide care. Dr. Gary Chapman has written about five ways that we show our love for one another: words of affirmation, acts of service, giving gifts, quality time, and physical touch. I believe that an affectionate parent nurtures the best inside their children to grow outward.
Forgiveness is about choosing peace in spite of a transgression. If we do not become a forgiving parent, we paralyze the depth of our bond as well as the effectiveness of our influence. We allow enduring stalemates that cycle into conflict, distance, resentments, and spite.
Time and time again we as parents must address problems that arise relating to our children’s safety and well-being. Parents should be careful to avoid what Dr. John Gottman has called “the four horsemen of the apocalypse: defensiveness, criticism, contempt, and stonewalling.” It is so easy to slip into the same old, same old patterned behaviors of conflict and distance.
The continual parenting challenge is to stir a wise decision-making mindset while simultaneously nurturing an open and vulnerable relationship, the vessel of truly effective influence. As we practice being parents that speak the truth in love, we maximize the power of our constructive influence.
Becoming a master at the craft of parenting requires a philosophy of courage over control and mindfulness during moments of stress and embattlement to act in spite of anxiety and impulse rather than at its whim. For only then do we truly experience and enact choice in our parenting behavior rather than simply replaying a vicious cycle of volatility that may have plagued generations.
© Copyright 2011. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The preceding article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the preceding article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment below.
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Comments
a child not only considers you as a parent but also as a role model,someone he or she looks up to and will probably want to follow.its very important that while we flex our authority,we do not choke them.
imagine being told what to do all the time.that’s not a great thing to have.but a guiding idea combined with direction and suggestion definitely seems like a better way.I believe in this approach and have followed it for my children and they have responded well all these years.
With my wife and I we are constantly at a struggle with the best way to parent or to react to our children. Both of us are shackled with the horrors and deficits we endured growing. My inability to accept failure and unending need to succeed in all circumstances. Her feeling of loss and unconnectedness with her father.
From my standpoint I have to constantly maintain a reference point on my interactions and reactions when my children bring me school assignments. My wife willingly watches and makes sure I am in line, a B is always acceptable. I have had to come to grips with success being defined by effort not the result. For my wifes part we have had to have open communication on my involvement level with my daughters. Always feeling pushed to interact with them has actually caused me to be uninvolved and we have had discussions about my reactions and connectedness with our daughters.
I’ve often fallen into the trap of a monotonous lifestyle that happens when the kids grow up and get interested in books, TV, or videogames. Things they can do themselves that they don’t need mom for anymore. I get up, get them to school, go to work, come home, make them dinner, watch TV, and go to bed. It’s difficult to find a window that breaks that repetitiveness.
@KTN-It’s that kind of lifestyle that causes the most kneejerk reactions when the same thing day after day starts to get to you. You become desperate for a break somewhere and it’s already starting to wear your nerves thin. Once it hits, you end up having a bad mood to go with it. Monotony can be extremely draining.
Kids are kids. When a grown adult cannot accept that some kids make mistakes, and punishes them for every little thing, they are not worthy of being a parent.
If your kid makes a mistake, tell them they did wrong, and have them figure out how to correct it and then do so. Once they’ve corrected it and understood what went wrong so as not to repeat the same mistake, leave it at that.
@Nick-I do that in my house, but the second and subsequent times that you do it means that I will be calculating the interest added on top of that correction.
Break a $5 vase? You pay the owner $5, clean it up, and apologize. The second time? I hope you know how to work shears because his front yard is looking messy.
The biggest of those metaphorical horsemen is criticism. Your children aren’t perfect: they are, wait for it…children! Parents need to knock off that rubbish about how they have to do everything perfectly.
There’s nothing wrong with pointing out a small flaw. However, I’ve seen parents insult them and inflate small errors to ridiculous heights that were totally disproportionate to the alleged wrongdoing.
@Sandra Laine–We must live in the same city. I’ve heard some very harsh words from parents to their kids over things that honestly don’t matter on any kind of scale. Some of them were so foul I had to ask my brother who’s a social worker “At what point does criticism become child abuse?”
parenting is a serious thing to do & is no child’s play;a parent in the real sense is responsible,& is aware of his or her child.
giving birth to a child does not make you a parent in itself;no!
its when you are able to tackle all the situations;when you are able to have control over the kid while allowing him to grow & individuate that you are a successful parent.
there are no set rules but only acting according to the situation; & when you are able to do that there is no feeling better than that :)
you’re in school,it needs effort. You’re in college,it needs effort from your side, you have a job,it needs lots of effort, you get into a relationship or marriage it needs work too. You become a parent and things do not change-it needs effort and work from you…without a doubt!
Unfortunately to master the art of parenting my own kids I have had to learn to leave my own childhood behind. I know my parents did the best that they could with what they had been given but it was not quite the best role modeling in the world. I wanted more and better for my own kids but to do that I had to give up on what I had been taught as a kid and learn on my own how to do better than what I had been shown.
Parenting isn’t only an art, it’s also a skill. Unlike most skills you get however, parenting is the most dynamic one of them all. You are dealing with a human being with free will, and they are the most unpredictable things in the world. Sadly, many are not cut out for the job.
I have a hard time with some of this because I really feel like there are some people who are natural born parents and some who no matter what kind of parenting tips they are offered are never going to be the kind of parents that the kids need for them to be.
With that being said I wish that many more people would try to be more thoughtful about bringking kids into the world. It is not easy being a good parent and think about how much harm you can do by being a bad one.
Madison, I have a difficult time with some of this as well. And I would like to be able to place myself in that category of a “natural born parent,” but unfortunately, I don’t think I qualify.
I appreciate your comment and think that it may be true that “there are some who no matter what kind of parenting tips they are offered are never going to be the kind of parents the kids need for them to be.”
One of my favorite therapist authors, Carl Whitaker, once wrote that when families do come to therapy, they need “complex emotional experience, not intellectual nagging.” And so, while an article such as mine may be quite ineffective at stirring change, I do believe that, for many, change is within reach.
Many parents who would probably not fit the category of a “natural born parent” find in a process of therapy opportunities to confront themselves, their past, self-worth, and reflexes in a way that stirs awareness. As I wrote in my article, “as awareness increases, so does our capacity for choice and self-direction.”
I encourage a process of therapy for parents struggling along in their parenting because I believe that many times real and sustainable good comes out of it.
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