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Choose
How You Parent
- Gary Direnfeld
Parenting skills
are generally learned through our early life experiences with our own caregivers.
This process is called "role modeling". In most instances the role model
is mom and dad, but in many other instances, the role model could be a
grandparent, foster parent, friend of the family or other guardian. Throughout
these early life experiences most persons learn healthy and adaptive ways
to raise children. However, for some, their own upbringing may have included
issues arising out of violence, abuse, neglect or other forms of dysfunction
that interfere with their own ability to parent today.
Given poor
experiences from one's past, it can be a challenge for some persons to
parent in such a way so as not to re-create the familiar. In other words,
it can be difficult to parent differently from how you were parented, so
what happened to you doesn't happen to your children. Some persons who
have had poor childhood experiences are concerned about their parenting
skills. Even some persons with good childhood experiences have concerns
too.
The road to
better parenting or parenting differently from what you experienced begins
with the process of self-discovery. If in your past, you had experiences
related to abuse, violence, neglect or other forms of family dysfunction
or you are just concerned, consider consulting a social worker or finding
books pertaining to your childhood experience to learn how your early experiences
can affect adult life and your parenting. Talking with a social worker
or reading books helps to hold a mirror to oneself to more fully and deeply
examine where we come from to determine who we are and how we act.
With this deeper
understanding of our self, we are then better equipped to recognize how
what we learned may affect our current parenting behaviour. Then we are
able to contrast our behaviour with what children really need for healthy
development. If there is a discrepancy between what we now realize we are
doing and what is actually best for children, there are steps we can take
to improve matters.
The next steps
involve shedding the old patterns of parenting behaviours in favour of
adopting new parenting skills. Even though we may not like our past experiences,
they are familiar and in a sense, comfortable. As such we need reminders,
support and information both for what not to do but also for help with
what to do. Strategies to help be a better parent can come in several different
forms and include everything from reading books, to notes on the refrigerator
door, to counseling, to support groups, to parenting classes.
Along the way,
you may want to consider adopting a new role model. If your role models
weren't healthy, think of someone else, whose parenting abilities you admire.
This could be a friend's parent, a fictional character from a book or even
a television personality. The objective here is to pick someone who you
know parents well. Then, when you are stuck and wonder what to do, you
can think of what that person would do in your situation. This is a nice
way to take care of yourself and your children.
Choose your
role model and how you want to parent to be the kind of parent your child
would choose.
To see other article by Gary Direnfeld or contact him: click here
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