Parenting
Parenting – the most amazing experience and the most frustrating…
Babies are so cuddly, soft, and cute until they cry all night or have trouble feeding. You love them, but they’re exhausting! Each day you do loads of laundry, are always on call, and never have a minute to yourself.
Everyone tells you that your precious one will be sleeping through the night before you know it. You don’t believe them.
Before long, the baby starts walking and talking, just what you wanted. But now, you’re chasing your toddler around the house and locking up cabinet doors that even you can’t get open!
You’re constantly cleaning up their spilled cereal, milk, squished broccoli, and every other sort of food. Luckily, they didn’t fling it at you! All this happens before you leave for work.
You never thought you’d have to bathe them twice a day to get the applesauce, spinach, and spaghetti sauce off their arms and legs, and out of their hair. Gross!
And the Terrible Twos become the Thrashing Threes!
They get into everything and prefer your expensive pots and pans to all the current hot toys. While you pull into the driveway, they fall asleep in the car.
After stocking up on food they loved yesterday, they refuse it the next day. They sleep through the night, then they don’t sleep through the night. You find them in your bed!
Finally, they are off to school.
Relief! NOW, you have time to catch up on work. The house is quiet during the day but short-lived. Soon, after-school activities, carpools, and appointments pull you in so many different directions that you don’t know where to go first.
Dinner? What’s for dinner? With hungry crying kids latching onto your legs and begging you for cookies, how do you shop, cook something healthy in 30 minutes, and satisfy everyone’s dietary needs?
You want to scream, lock yourself in the bathroom, and get away from it all. But there they are, banging on the door, demanding your attention.
Tweens and teens have their own issues.
DRAMA! They’re helpless when it comes to completing chores after umpteen reminders and threats. They have behavior and learning issues and make social plans without asking – and then depend on you to provide transportation. SCREEN TIME!
They’re hopeless about fitting in with a friend group. Losing a friendship, boy/girl drama, tears, anxiety, and depression, and disappointments run through their life. A new school or moving homes only deepens the drama.
They want to fit in, but they also want independence and individuality.
They ask you to take them to the mall, and then tell you not to embarrass them by walking next to them. Friends count more than anybody else.
It feels like all they want from you is food, clothing, transportation, spending money, and maybe the car.
Just like the two-year-old, they are unable to understand the word “No!”
You try to be the best parent you can be, but your teen is challenging you at every turn.
You’re physically and emotionally drained, and it feels like there’s nothing you can do about it except wait until they grow up and move out of the house.
Multi-tasking – an art and a science!
You know it’s not productive, and you’re not supposed to do it – but you have no choice. You’re cutting up veggies for dinner, and others are bickering. Somebody needs homework help, but you have no idea how to do it!
Your phone keeps dinging with important texts and emails that need a response. But you remember the studies about how neglected and upset kids feel when parents are on their electronics.
It’s hard to avoid the stress and anxiety of not being able to do it all.
You’re a parent! Welcome to parenthood!
Parenting is your primary job, whether you work outside the home or not. Parenting can be both rewarding and frustrating, and it doesn’t matter whether you are a man, a woman, single parent, or adoptive parent.
It doesn’t matter if you live in a two-parent household, share parenting, are a stepparent, or co-parent. No parent is immune from challenges.
Too often your children and their situations bring you frustration, anger, fights, and tears. When you socialize with other parents, it looks like everyone else’s kids are perfectly behaved.
Nobody dares talk about difficulties with their kids, so you keep quiet and listen. It hurts and makes you feel bad about your parenting skills and your kids.
You love your kids . . . BUT
Raising kids is trying. You make the effort to smile, be loving and kind, but inside you’re angry and losing it. If your partner doesn’t help or you disagree on discipline, it adds more resentment and stress.
Regardless, you still need to focus on being a parent.
A good relationship between partners helps. If you can’t have that, you still need to be there for your kids, no matter what. It’s hard to remember that even if you’re feeling unsupported or alone, other parents are struggling, too.
Ok, how do I do it?
You’ve stayed up all night reading parenting books, attended parenting classes, and nothing changes. You can’t get the answers you want.
You need a personalized approach – one designed exclusively for you and your family.
This is the time to meet with a therapist. A parenting expert can help with a host of parenting issues – temper tantrums, disobedience, disrespect, sibling rivalry, white lies, setting boundaries, anger and aggression, whining, picky eaters, socialization, electronics, and ELECTRONICS!
These are not the only things that interfere with good parenting. Notice I didn’t say perfect parenting. Everyone makes mistakes, and you will, too.
A family in crisis
I’d like to share Jack and Annie’s story (yes, from The Magic Treehouse, just using their names) to demonstrate how successful parenting can be with the help of a parenting expert.
As an accountant, Jack was extremely busy and worked late into the evening. Annie had a career that either required her to work long hours some days or not at all when there wasn’t enough business.
Jack married young, was divorced, and had custody of three children (ages 6, 8, and 10). Annie’s career was too demanding for her to even think of marriage until three years ago when she met Jack, who was six years older than her.
Annie understood that she would have parenting responsibilities but had a different idea about what life would be like.
Although Jack did the best he could, he was often not at home, so Annie accepted most of the responsibility. Annie was overwhelmed with the responsibility of caring for three kids, who probably liked her but didn’t always treat her respectfully.
Every day presented a new challenge.
By now, the kids were 9,11, and 13. Annie had never been a parent. She quickly realized that parenting kids where she currently lived was different compared with the small town in Idaho where she grew up.
Help me NOW!
Annie needed information about how to parent three children of different ages and stages of growing up. There was no time to read parenting books or go to classes. She needed answers now!
Discipline, responsibility, chores, and after-school activities burdened her. Questions and more questions overwhelmed her. How much freedom should she give them? When were they old enough to make their own school lunches, do homework without being reminded over and over, walk the dog, do their own laundry, and be responsible for their belongings?
Annie was trying to adjust to a new marriage, attempting to make friends in a place she had never lived, and serving as a parent for three kids approaching their teens. She never pretended to be their mother. She knew her place and respected the kids’ mom and their time with her.
By the time Annie came to see me, she didn’t know what to say. She was depressed and anxious.
The kids were her biggest worry, so I asked her to start there. She began to sob. After regaining her composure, she told me that she just didn’t know what to do. She could not trust herself to do the right thing – ever!
We talked about the challenges of a stepparent and how to co-parent with Jack and the kids’ mom. We defined age-appropriate tasks for each child.
Over time, Annie developed a household organization plan, set appropriate responsibilities and boundaries for the kids, and planned a challenging two-week family vacation. To avoid a disastrous vacation, everyone had to pitch in and do their part.
Annie succeeded in making her new family a team. Bravo!
Her depression vanished without medication. She still comes in when the occasional speed bump trips her up, but she and Jack are doing well on their own. Now she comes in smiling.
I shared Jack and Annie’s story to demonstrate how successful parenting can be with the help of a parenting specialist.
Don’t wait until…
…you’re completely overwhelmed, stressed, out of options, and ready to give your kids away.
Call me now! (301) 309-8077
As both a therapist and parent, I’ve been through it all. Don’t wait, and don’t do it alone. It’s not worth the heartache and the lost joy of parenthood.