“I’ll never be as good a parent as my friend XXX”, “I should play more with my kids.” “My kids like their mom better.” “Nice job, idiot.”
Parents and caregivers can really be hard on themselves and often compare themselves too much to others on social media, in movies and others in the park. The negative self-talk and constant judgment of ourselves can really take a toll. It can increase stress levels, can result in anxiety or depression and impact relationships around us. As a result of self-deprecating behavior and comments, your kids pick up on that as well. You project these negative thoughts and your kids can gain that perception of you and or they also can learn that same behavior for themselves.
If you notice that your head is full of negative self-talk, perhaps it is time to take a deep breath and recalibrate. Awareness is the first step to creating change. So, if you are feeling a constant chatter in your head, first take a breath or two to regulate your emotions. Parenting is an emotional role and we can sometimes get caught up in the internal chatter.
Here are some strategies to help you recalibrate your thoughts:
Self-care
Take notice what you do to care for yourself. It is NOT SELFISH to practice self care. In fact, it actually benefits your entire family if you do take time out for yourself. You will be a better parent as a result. This could be in the form of exercise, date night, friends night, reading a good book, listening to music, meditation, a cup of tea on the couch, a bath…whatever fills up your tank in a positive way. While practicing this self-care, it also benefits your child to hear that you are doing this for yourself. This way, they can learn positive ways to practice self-care too. For example, “I had a crazy day at work, before I cook dinner, I just need to go out and talk a walk to decompress.” Or if they pose something to you and it requires you to step back and think about before you lash out at them. You might say, “Wow, that is a tough one. I need to go take a bath and think about this before I respond.” Giving yourself the time to process and think while practicing some self-care helps you manage the relationship with care and also model solid emotional regulation tools.
SHOULD-eliminate this word
“Don’t should on others and don’t let others should on you.” I often share this statement with the parents and caregivers that I work with. The word should carries a lot of judgment with it. We use it a lot with others and it often brings out defensiveness when we do. But, we also “Should” ourselves. “I should get in better shape, I should be like that woman on social media.” This is another way that we practice negative self-talk. Be mindful of how often we should others and ourselves and try to eliminate it from our vocabulary.
The value of positive self-talk
I have heard for years, “You have to be your own best friend.” What this means to me, is that I need to care for myself like I would a best friend. If you love and care for yourself, you will be better to others. In taking this approach, it helps to shift to positive self-talk. By doing so, we help ourselves and again, role model positive behavior to our children. Ways that we can be better to ourselves is to shift our talk to positive statements. Create mantras of sorts to help convince ourselves that we are doing the best we can. If we learn from a situation, we can say, “Now that I know better, I will do better.” We can motivate ourselves, by being more confident in our statements to ourselves. “I CAN do this or We will get through this.”
By allowing ourselves to realize that you will get through something, helps to set the tone of a growth mindset. This mindset is advantageous to your children as well. It is important for them to understand that practice helps, working together is important, collaborative problem solving provides various solutions and all of these come from a growth mindset perspective that sets the tone for success. What positive mantras can you place in your head space?
Limit screens
Following our high school friend from 15-20 years ago or a social media influencer can certainly cause some feelings to erupt. It can make you feel left out or you can feel like you aren’t measuring up to other parents. Be careful about getting sucked into these thoughts. You are doing the best you can do. Try not to compare yourself to others. There is probably more to their stories that are not being told by their posts. One way to help yourself is to limit your time on social media. Can you reduce your time by one hour a day?
By taking a few steps to recalibrate your approaches will help reframe the chatter in your head to a more positive one. You will feel lighter and your family will notice a difference.
Finally, if you are still struggling with this concept of self-care, please join me for a 90 minute, virtual session on Self-connection/Self-Care on Tuesday, September 26th from 7-8:30pm. Here is the registration link and flyer:
http://weblink.donorperfect.com/SelfConnectionWorkshop2023
You and your family matter,
Suzan
