You Are a Good Parent

Today I want to encourage you.

You are not a terrible parent. In fact, I know you are a good parent because you are seeking out ways to become better at what you do with your kids. You came searching for solutions to things you're struggling with. Or you knew this blog was here and came to read what it had to say because you want to soak up as many parenting ideas as possible. You know you don't have all the answers. You know that there is no such thing as a perfect parent (except for our Divine Father...which is a whole other blog post). And because you know this, you want to learn more ways to be better at this parenting job of yours. You love your kids and you want what's best for them. And a good parent like you knows that since you're one of the most important influences in your child's life, they deserve the best from you.

And yet, if you're like many of the parents I come across, you feel like you're a terrible parent because you don't know all the answers to your parenting questions. Your kids do frustrate you. You get angry at them. You find yourself at a lost for how to deal with those recurring behaviors. There are times you feel like you are completely out of control and it overwhelms you. And because you feel this way, you feel like you're failing. Or you feel guilty because the only thing you know what to do in such situations are things you swore you'd never do.

You are not a terrible parent. You just don't know what to do instead.

Read those two sentences again.

The love we feel for our children, the desire to protect them, our desire to be the best parent possible for them, these things are innate. How we carry these things out practically is not. Parenting skills are learned. Most of us have not been taught great parenting skills. Many of us were actually taught very poor parenting skills. How you parent your own kids was taught to you primarily by those who parented you. And even though you swore you would never yell like your mother or give in like your father, when all else fails and you don't know what else to do, you find yourself falling back on what you DO know and doing the things you saw your own parents do in similar situations.

This is good news. It means you are not a bad parent. You just do what you know how to do.

This is good news because how you parent is a learned behavior.

This is good news because you can learn something different. You can learn more skills. You can learn to be a better parent. You can learn parenting strategies that actually work so you don't have to get so angry. You don't have to yell. You can actually feel successful in your parenting. And when you keep learning new and better strategies and commit yourself to putting them into practice it won't be long before you realize what I knew about you from the beginning.

You are good parent.