Do you give yourself permission to parent your way? I recommend this, because you are the one true expert on your child and therefore the perfect parent for your individually unique child.
Do you remember when your first baby arrived, and how friends, family members, and everyone gave you advice? What did you do? Did you follow everything they told you? Or did you become frustrated because of the well-meaning but ill-timed advice, which often did not work?
I’ll bet, at that time, you gave yourself permission to do things your way. I certainly hope so, because you and only you are the expert on your child. That’s why you are the perfect parent for your child. In addition, you can grow and learn more about parenting as your child grows up.
Even childhood/parenting experts like me, need to continue to learn about more about children, development, discipline and parenting As a perfect parent, that’s what you need to do too. However, first let’s banish your doubts.
Maybe you sometimes feel uncertain as a parent about what you should or shouldn’t do or what is right or wrong in parenting decisions. Where did these thoughts and feelings come from? Who told you that you couldn’t parent your children your way very well?
You may be surprised to discover that there are two main sources for such doubt. The first is yourself. The second is everyone else.
First, you may doubt yourself, if you ever received criticism as a child, (and who hasn’t?) In your teens you probably tried to reject any criticism and you thought something like, “When I grow up I will believe in myself. I won’t put myself down.” However, as humans we tend to carry what our caregivers, teachers and coaches told us about ourselves, right into adulthood. So you may not easily identify and separate your own thoughts and feelings from those you have been told. That makes you doubt yourself. The remedy for this is to believe in yourself again.That’s why I want you to tell yourself that you are an expert of your child; the perfect parent for your child.
How can you sort out and use ‘advice.’ I recommend you read and listen to as much of it as you can because that’s how you discover actual parenting truths and differing opinions. Parenting truths are those things everyone agrees on, like, "feed kids good nutritious meals." Opinions are those that may work for some kids, or some parents, in some situations but not all. For example, "What’s the right feeding schedule and the right amount of formula and to feed an infant?"
From this day forward I want you to believe in yourself. I encourage you to do what you know in our heart is the very best for you and your child. This will give you confidence to seek out parenting truths and to use opinions where they make sense to you. That’s how you can be the perfect parent for your child.
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