Why Parenting Guidance Needs to Change

My son thrashed on the ground, face bright red, guttural shrieks of indignance after I had the audacity to stir his yogurt. Everything I knew about normal 2-year-old behavior ran through my brain while I simultaneously did the opposite of all expert recommendations -- as an “expert” myself.

My persistent and intense son not known for his flexibility rendered my PhD in child clinical psychology useless. In fact, between the two of us with PhDs in child clinical psychology (my husband and I met in graduate school), we continued to be dumbfounded by our son’s behavior. Did I mention he was our third child? By all accounts, we should have had the education, training, and seasoned skills needed to respond to our son’s epic tantrums with calm and confidence. Instead, I did all the no-no’s: I yelled back, attempted reasoning; I may have cried. Even while yelling, reasoning, and crying, I thought “this is completely ineffective,” and felt like a total failure.

“If we feel like we are judged by the very parenting books that have promised to make this easier, then we are worse instead of better. ”

As a well-educated social scientist, when I became a parent, I knew how to get the information I needed. I just had to find the right experts, read the right books, hit on the right strategies, and I would figure this all out.

Fast forward to actual motherhood: Why won’t my infant SLEEP without waking up 9 times a night? I used the Happiest Baby on the Block book with my first daughter, and she slept through the night at 7 ½ weeks old. With my cheerfully sleepless second daughter, I read every sleep website and multiple sleep books, googled every possible iteration of my desperate plea to find out how I could sleep more than four consecutive hours, and still ended up in a zombie state of sleeplessness for an entire 13 months before we achieved that coveted sticker on the baby calendar – “slept through the night!”

When I hit the parenting hurdle of behavioral struggles with my young son, I more cynically approached the guidance, even in my great time of need. I read a few books targeting our problem, and noticed a pattern – reading them made me feel worse about myself and less confident about my parenting. Following the assurance that creative ways of directing our children would result in less yelling, I whispered to my 4-year-old “put on your shoes.” He hit me in the leg and yelled, “I don’t love you!”

What to Change

Stop Shame and Blame

I have heard from too many that too often we feel like failures after reading a parenting book, or unsuccessfully piloting new parenting strategies with an unreceptive audience (our children). I recently pored over a social media thread of 300 plus comments of experiences that turned parents away from parenting books, with these negative feelings of being blamed, shamed, and inadequate as the primary reason.

Parenting is hard. Parenting really well is even harder. If we feel like we are judged by the very parenting books that have promised to make this easier, then we are worse instead of better.

Recognize We Do More Than Parent

Many parenting books simply do not take into account context, like even having more than one child! Or temperament, which significantly shapes our interactions, and feelings of (in)competence. Sure, parenting would be easy peasy lemon squeezy (as my kids say) if that is all we had to do in life. (Also, let’s admit, quite boring for many of us who thrive on life with identities beyond “parent.”) We do not in fact have unlimited time to be super empathetic with our toddler while allowing their dignity and worth to flourish in their refusal to get dressed. (I know. They are asserting autonomy. But that can take forever!)

Parenting in a pandemic has unearthed systemic problems everywhere, including lack of supports for parents, which increases our stress, which obviously makes parenting harder. We know our stress affects our children and how we respond to them, and then we feel even worse for being so stressed in the first place.

Context matters, as a global pandemic has made painfully clear. But beyond that obvious and universal example, we parent through many seasons – seasons of our own big life changes, changes to our family life, and crises that leave us feeling guilty for not being “better parents.” Our children may be the center of our universe, but parenting can’t always be.

Inclusion

As our culture finally enters a reckoning with systematic exclusion of many groups of people, words like “inclusion” and “diversity” pepper every socially conscious social media thread. As many subcultures dominated by “experts,” parenting is also quite white and hetero, not to mention cis-female (looking at a panel of the bestselling authors of parenting books is like the female version of the business page’s richest CEOs).

The world of parenting guidance is far from exempt from the sea of racism we all swim in; many of us don’t see it because we exist so deeply within it. Like conversation in all other areas of our society, we need to have this one in parenting. For example, racism as a profound stressor for many families, is rarely mentioned. What we know from parenting and child development research is often from predominantly white participant groups, but we don’t acknowledge that well enough.

Many parenting books I have read also include the unspoken assumption that children are generally built the same, and will therefore respond as predicted by the author. I have beef with this for two reasons: 1. I happen to have one or two children of my own who consistently defy parenting advice (“Give them choices!” and when I do, “I don’t want either of those. I want this thing that I can’t have.”); 2. Parents of children with neurological or developmental differences are conspicuously excluded. And they feel it. And many internalize this as their own failure as a parent instead of the failure of the expert.

Many of the oft-advised strategies I read will need minimal to major tweaking to be effective with children who have ADHD, Anxiety, or Autism, for example. Sure, there are books for those parenting situations, but they focus on addressing the specific symptoms of those diagnoses. “Normal” parenting problems come up for parents of children with emotional or behavior challenges. Finally, parents also bring to parenting their own neurodiversity, physical differences, or mental health struggles, which go unmentioned as potentially major pressure points and influences on the parenting experience.

Parent First Parenting

When we read a parenting book or follow a parenting expert, we should feel validated and empowered, leaving us with that blend of confidence that we are on the right track with curiosity for how to keep growing and learning as a parent. Parenting guidance should capture the nuanced humanity of parenting and all its mess, not issue a narrow prescription of strategies that if they don’t work, leaves us feeling more hopeless and helpless. A parenting book or tips should feel grounded in real-life, not life that would exist if all we had to focus on was our children and identity as “Mom” or “Dad.” I have found this type of guidance sometimes, but why not demand it as threads that should run through parenting guidance most of the time?

I am not here to complain and point fingers and do nothing. I have a plan and a larger call to action to change the dominant culture of parenting. I call it “Parent First Parenting” and I can’t wait to tell you more. Stay tuned for the next post, “How Parenting Guidance Needs to Change,” to find out what is Parent First Parenting, and why I believe it is the parenting approach many of us need right now, at this very moment in our modern era, to help us all be happier and healthier.

In case you were worried about my totally ineffective response to my toddler son, that 2-year-old is now 6, and we have come a long way together. Even though I had no idea what to do with his yogurt rage, we’re both just fine. Most of the time.