After our first day in Arkansas, my 8-year-old announced she wanted to live there forever. I have a theory it was because of the free desserts at lunch at my grandmother’s assisted living home, but I wonder if there was a deeper sense she had of the family connection that is often missing in our modern world of spread out families.

That's exactly why we need to tread carefully with how we read and respond to headlines about the effects of daycare. We don't need the already-present flames of guilt to be fanned by click-bait headlines preying on our fears.

When one or many of our children go through the developmentally normal phase of rejecting us, it can hurt. It can rub salt into a wound we may not have realized was so raw and open. Where is the gratitude for what I do for our family? This is where we may have a very human response to what can feel like superhuman expectations as a parent.

I take on “attachment” parenting because these types of highly publicized, marketed, sometimes trendy approaches to parenting not only are largely theoretical, but can result in more guilt and stress for mothers feeling like they can’t do it “right.”

Researching this topic actually changed me, and my parenting. I had fallen into the homework trap with my second grader, a portion of our short evening together devolving into tears and pencils flying through the air. My worries about her future work ethic pushing me to push her, even if I tried to do so with compassion and encouragement. 

This week, I thought of how many of us parents are wondering how to balance our fears with living life normally. How do we not want to keep our kids home from school just in case?

So maybe we have these idealized visions of making family memories, because we really do remember the positive parts from our own childhoods – the feelings of closeness, tradition, and connection.

The non-linear nature of the storytelling opens me up to feeling the bigness of those small, tender moments that I so wish I could tightly pack and store in my memory for perfect preservation.

This is the perfect illustration of what seems to be the biggest struggle for many of us in parenting: we are not in control. We can be in charge, at least most of the time, but control is an illusion – or delusion - depending on the day.

In this Art and Science of Mom space, we celebrate and embrace the imperfections, even as we constantly strive to do and be ideal versions of our parent selves.

I know all the stuff so that I SHOULD know what to do, but none of this knowledge prepares me for managing the mystery that is a Toddler. 

I consumed every nugget of information online or in print or through advice from other parents. Letting her cry-it-out accomplished nothing but a super stressed out me laying in bed wide awake, and her STILL not sleeping. I am an educated, reasonable, well-resourced woman; I couldn’t figure out this puzzle -- and there is no motivation like utter sleep deprivation.

Today’s “screen time” has become complicated by so many types of screens and media, potentially available at every minute, that most parents feel a constant pull of guilt versus convenience.

You don’t know what my morning was like. You don’t know how much attention I have given my children in every other moment today besides this reprieve at the park.

It is both heartbreaking and somewhat comical when our 2-year-old son says, “I don’t like when you scream at me. It cries makes me.” His brain is still learning how to put sentences together, but he sure understands enough about his emotional experience to let us know how our impatience affects him.

What is the number one job of parents to keep their children alive? Feed them. What could be more natural than feeding our babies and children? Well, for a lot of reasons, it can be pretty difficult and stressful.

Let’s add some sanity and reason back into our angst and chaos by asking these questions: 1. What do we really know? 2. What’s true for my child and family?

As a psychologist who promotes communication, positive family interactions, and focusing on strengths, I say this: we will all yell. But that's not all that counts, and the more you forgive yourself for it, the less you may actually do it.