Trust Your Intuition by Sarah Wilkins

How does pressure placed on new parents to raise their children with today’s definition of parenting styles undermine a parent’s ability to trust their instincts? Tips and advice can be found easily online for parents. That is not a bad thing, being a new parent can be scary, and having somewhere to look when needing reassurance is helpful. What might not be though, is the emphasis on what are now called parenting styles. According to Mayo Clinic, there are 4 types, Authoritarian, Authoritative, Permissive, and Neglectful. There are also a lot more names on social media like gentle parenting, attachment, and lawn mower parenting. Seeing videos on social media about those different types makes it too easy for new parents to forget what is- important, that we know our children best, and that inside of us exists the knowledge and instinct that we need to raise our children how we choose to.   

Have you ever said to yourself, “When I have children…?” If so, when you then had children, did that thought ever come back to haunt you? It is so easy to think about the type of parent we are going to be. We know ourselves well, and we understand how we interact with others on a day-to-day basis. We know how we handle situations that require us to de-escalate or to talk through disagreements. Situations call on us to constantly problem solve and use our prior experience and personal values to navigate interactions with people. Whether that’s family, friends, or people outside of that. Most people have a good handle on all of these things. However, our idea of parenting is limited to what we’ve observed of other parents, including our own parents, and taking care of children who are not our own like siblings, or nieces and nephews.

Then, we have children of our own, and everything changes. Children have their own personalities and dispositions. How they react to things is unique to them. This is where you find yourself changing or adapting. Maybe you thought, “If my child asks for something in the store and I say no, I’ll have raised them to respect my answer and not throw a fit.” Maybe you realized fits happen regardless, but you had a preset idea of how you’d handle it. We all think we would do something better than the parents we’d seen before us in those situations. Then we find ourselves in the grocery store, and our child is screaming and nothing is working. Not only are you trying to help your child manage these big emotions they are now experiencing, but we also become all too aware that we are being noticed and likely judged, just as we found ourselves doing at some point in time.

A parent’s love for their children is what drives their desire to do what is best for them. It is what determines the type of future they want their children to have, and what values they want to instill in them. Parents do typically have a strong sense of responsibility to raise their children to be good, kind, and respectful people. They also want them to grow up to achieve everything they desire, to be happy, and to create a life for themselves that makes them happy. Parents know that they must incorporate boundaries, morals, routines, allowances, and restrictions to accomplish this. 

Cue social media. Turn on TikTok and start scrolling and you’ll find a plethora of videos of people sharing their techniques, tips, and advice. A lot of the time, this is done by showing their own success with their own children as an example. This can be really encouraging and helpful. It is the same as drawing on our own previous experiences, only now we can apply this in real-time. Keep scrolling though, and you start to question yourself. Why does that not work with my children, why am I not able to get my children to listen that well, why do those kids seem so well-behaved, or how do those parents seem to have it so together? Those 2- or 3-minute videos only show what that person wants us to see. Some genuinely want to be helpful, some want to show off their successes. 

Now, there are a lot of parenting choices and techniques that fit into the main types of parenting. You could look at them and find where you fit into one, maybe two, maybe more than that. Sometimes this can feel validating. As human beings, we seek validation, and knowing we are doing a good job is important to us. It fuels our motivation, and it is how we know something we are doing is working. However, attempting to fit a certain idea or style is limiting. It starts to be the same as beauty, fashion, or wealth standards. We see online what is glorified and sought after and we try to attain that for ourselves. But parenting is not stationary, it is not solid. It is malleable, flexible, and living. 

It is natural to question if we are doing the right thing. That is how we know we care. You are going to make mistakes, but we are going to learn from those mistakes. If we spend all of our time worrying about what we are doing wrong, or what we could be doing better, we will miss the most wonderful years of our children’s lives. Give yourself grace, and allow yourself to be comfortable with your choices. Every last one of them. Allow love and forgiveness to shape your relationship with your children. The very best part of being a parent is that we have the innate instinctual ability to know how to best handle anything for our children, we just have to learn to trust that. Our intuition is our strength and no amount of advice or pressure can replace that.