Supporting Parents is Supporting Kids

Supporting yourself as a parent is the key to supporting growth in your child.

Photo by Aditi Gautam on Unsplash

Supporting yourself as a parent is the key to supporting growth in your child. As a parent, you can leverage change in your family in a way no one else can. For this reason, it is important to devote time and energy to developing your individual parenting skills. This is a realization I came to only later in my parenting journey. When my husband and I were parenting our children, we believed that we should pour all our resources, time, and energy into what our children needed from outside sources. We sent them to everything the school suggested, from therapy to tutors to allergists. Some of these supports helped, and some did not. I did not focus as much on my interactions with my children. 

The Parent Role

It turns out parents and caregivers play an integral role in building our children’s brains and behaviors. Creating connections and building relationships within the family unit is one vital key. The way we interact with our kids in the small moments can have a lasting impact. 

Young children are dependent on parents and caregivers not only for their safety and health, but also for the daily, positive interaction that literally builds children’s brains. –Early Childhood: Support kids & their families – Center for High Impact Philanthropy

My husband and I are both educators and well-intentioned parents. And as I look back now, I realize we were missing a key element: investing in developing our parenting skills. We outsourced a lot of support and did not change much about the way we parented, managed the household, and interacted with our kids. We certainly did not dedicate much time to reflecting on our parenting, what we might develop further, or what we might change. 

Now, as a parent coach, I see the value of this type of reflective and skill-building time. I see parents thinking deeply about their children, identifying their strengths, and developing skills of their own. All this intentional work impacts their children’s growth. After all, the one person you can change is yourself. You can be the lever that starts smaller changes within your family.

Essential Tips:

• Identify your child’s strengths: Think of the times your child seems most joyful. Big smiles on their faces, playful, and free. What are they doing? Who are they with? Their strengths are often shining in these moments. Are they creative? Do they share easily with friends? Are they flexible when plans change? Are they funny?
• Find your calm. Develop and practice calming strategies that work for you. When you are upset, what helps you gain equilibrium in the moment? We all know that things get chaotic and messy in parenting. It is so important that, as the adults, we can practice and model how to be calm. Breathing exercises, walking, drinking cold water, taking a break, or looking at a picture of your child smiling an happy. Find what works for you. This may take lots of practice.
• Be kind to yourself. We all make mistakes all the time. Hopefully, we can reflect and learn form them. I believe we are all doing our best with what we have at any given moment.

I wish I had known some of these tips earlier in my parenting journey. I do know that it is never too late to start growing and changing. I began building these skills as my children were older, and I still see a great impact. 

Parenting is different for each one of us. Each family is unique and each child is unique. Parents need to develop the skills and strategies that work for their unique family. This takes practice and reflection, and eventually, we see improvement.