- Becoming a new parent can be an overwhelming experience.
- I spent a week asking parents I knew for their best pieces of parenting advice.
- They told me to make mistakes in front of my child, let them take risks, and not to forget to save some time for just myself.
Parenting is as overwhelming as it is gratifying — and it’s overwhelming long before it’s gratifying, in my opinion.
I remember preparing to be discharged from the hospital one day after my daughter was born. My husband and I looked at each, our faces distorted in confusion, and then we looked at the nurses.
They were letting us go? With the baby? Who would take care of her? How would she survive?
For new parents, gathering wisdom from people in a similar situation can provide some comfort. That's why for the past week, I asked every parent I knew for their best parenting advice. Their advice ranged allowing your child to take risks to remembering to take some time for just yourself.
Here are the nine best pieces of advice I got from parents.
Have dinner with your kids
Between work, school and extra-curricular classes, life with kids can feel incredibly busy. Treating a single part of your day as sacred family time is one way to help slow the pace down and prioritize connecting with one another.
For Kekona, a statistician and a father of two, that dedicated time is dinner — without screens, toys or other distractions. He told me he and his family might share the day’s highs and lows around the table. The idea is simply to be present and together.
If dinner doesn’t work in your schedule, pick another time of day. Beatriz, a preschool teacher, said she makes the morning special with her young daughter, even if it’s just 20 minutes. She sings a good-morning lullaby, opens the curtains with her child, looks at a wall of family photos, gets her dressed, and so on.
“Having this focused time together allows for joyful conversation each day and makes our mornings that much smoother,” Beatriz said. “And it really does help lessen my stress each morning.”
Talk about your emotions with them
Research shows that conversing with young children promotes brain growth and verbal aptitude. It’s not the volume of words that matter, rather that the verbal connection involves some authentic back-and-forth between parties.
Jordan, a writer and a father, recommended talking with your child about emotions in particular. Name and be honest about your own emotions, he says. This follows the teachings of author and psychiatrist Dan Siegel, who coined the phrase “name it to tame it.”
The idea is that when children — and adults — can name the feeling they’re dealing with in a given moment, they are more likely to respond in a reasonable way. Parents can model this through their own emotional conversations.
“Children are shockingly intuitive, and nothing will undermine their confidence like a parent trying to save face by saying ‘everything is fine,’ when it is not," he said.
"Kids understand and appreciate honesty. Putting (your) feelings into words isn't just setting an example for your child to be comfortable with their own emotions, it's also good practice to step back and reassess your own self when it's needed most.”
Make mistakes and keep trying
For Caro, an entrepreneur and dad of two, the business world has informed his parenting philosophy: Make mistakes, and be OK with those mistakes.
When kids see the adults in their lives try and fail, then get up and try again, they are more likely to embody a similar flexibility and sense of resilience.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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