Parenting is notorious for being one of the hardest jobs in the world. You’re expected to drop everything for your kids all the time, provide anything they could ever want (But you can’t work too much because quality time is important!) and raise them to be geniuses who get into Ivy League universities on scholarships at the age of 16. But what if parenting doesn’t have to be so hard? What if you don’t actually need to sacrifice everything you enjoy to constantly cater to your little ones? What if you could eliminate the pressure to parent the way mommy bloggers and family vloggers say you should? What if you could come up with your own version of parenting that suits you and your family?
Recently, developmental scientist Dorsa Amir shared a thread on Twitter breaking down “anti-advice” she has for fellow parents, and many readers resonated with her wise words. Below, we’ve got the whole thread for you pandas to read, as a reminder that you don’t need to put any pressure on yourself, as well as some of the replies parents have shared. We hope you find a bit of relief in Dorsa’s tweets, and then if you’re interested in reading another Bored Panda article discussing difficult lessons parents learn along the way, you can find that right here.
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Developmental scientist Dorsa Amir shared a thread on Twitter with “anti-advice” for parents, and her wise words quickly went viral
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Image credits: DorsaAmir
Listen beautiful relax classics on our Youtube channel.
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Being a parent is not easy, and just like everything else in life, we can’t be perfect at it. There will be days your kids arrive at school late or leave the house wearing their shirt backwards or days you’re speeding to soccer practice to pick them up 10 minutes after it’s already ended. There will be meals they don’t love, temper tantrums thrown in the grocery store and soup spilled on that brand new rug you love. But that’s just life. No human is perfect, and there is absolutely no reason to try to pretend like we are, to our children or to other parents.
In fact, trying to be some version of a “perfect parent” might actually have the opposite effect that you desire. One survey found that 60% of moms feel massive pressure to be perfect parents, and 50% of parents put off asking for help because they feel ashamed. But what kind of message does this send our children? That we have to try to hide our failures and save face all the time? That we’re never allowed to ask for help even when we’re struggling? Why don’t we instead teach our kids to accept and learn from our mistakes? We can approach mishaps with a sense of humor and understanding. “Whoops! Just one of those days!” Mistakes shouldn’t be the end of the world, and the sooner our kids learn that, the better.
There are infinite books, bloggers and people on Facebook or in your life that will tell you exactly how to parent, but sometimes, it’s best to just shut them all out and decide what works for you. You love your children, and nobody knows your family better than you do. So don’t feel the need to force your kids to read books years above their grade level. Not everyone has time to dedicate to raising little geniuses, and as Dorsa notes in her thread, kids are learning all the time anyway! Food is another topic everyone seems to have an opinion on. But if your kids are picky and refuse to eat tomatoes no matter how many ways you present them, don’t feel like a failure. They might eat them in the future, or they might not. But it’s no big deal; don’t sweat the small stuff.
Genevieve Simperingham wrote a piece for the Peaceful Parent Institute debunking the “perfect parent” myth, and she noted that one of the most difficult times in her parenting journey was when she had her second child. “I remember well the shame and humiliation I felt around struggling and often failing to keep all the ball’s juggling,” she writes. “My older child was suffering the loss of the very available and cheerful mum that I’d previously been to him. He was hurting and he was understandably angry. It was a daily struggle just to cope. I was forced to confront my super strong and sorted persona that I presented to the world when I felt shaky. If I was to gain the support and the empathy that I was desperate for, I knew I had to swallow my pride and show my vulnerability.”
But eventually, she realized that her kids know what they need, and if we, as parents, just listen to them and provide, that’s enough. “Children can’t deal with our blocks, inhibitions, wounds or fears, they just know what they need, and are driven, despite their fears of rejection, to seek their needs from us,” she explained. “So, whether we think we can rise to the challenge or not, our children keep pushing us to show them love that is bigger than our pain and their pain, our inhibitions and their inhibitions. They keep pulling on our heartstrings and challenging us to care, to hear, to listen, to empathize, to accept, to just love them no matter what, to keep opening our heart to them through it all, to keep repairing the heart connection again and again.”
If you have kids, we hope you pandas know that you’re doing a great job parenting. Kids want love, respect and support, and there are a million different ways we can go about giving it to them, so don’t feel pressured into following one particular path. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this “anti-advice” in the comments down below, and then if you’re interested in reading another Bored Panda article about parenting, check out this story next.
Many readers chimed in sharing that they resonated with Dorsa’s words and that they were relieved to hear them
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The post “Here Are A Few Things You Can Worry Less About”: Parents Are Loving This Viral Thread With Parenting “Anti-Advice” first appeared on Bored Panda.
Source: boredpanda.com