Parenting Tender Souls
Motherhood has been the most beautiful, challenging, transformative, and occasionally disorienting experience of my life so far. There is no doubt that I made it more difficult for myself by my refusal or inability to reflect on my childhood experiences. Childhood experiences shape the neural pathways that form our core beliefs about self-identity, interpersonal relationships, and our roles in life, ultimately influencing how we navigate and respond to the world around us. My unexamined childhood left me with a set of beliefs I had established as a child. Imagine letting your seven-year-old-self be in charge of parenting decisions—that's essentially what happened to me, as I unknowingly carried forward the beliefs and coping mechanisms shaped by my younger self.
Of course, it’s not as simple as ‘letting my seven-year-old-self’ be in charge all the time. Parts of me were more mature than others, but, by and large, I was operating from my wounds. Dr. Daniel Siegel and educator Mary Hartzell, in their book, Parenting from the Inside Out, explain how making sense of our childhood experiences is essential for establishing healthy parent-child connections. Their book is a great place to begin to explore attachment theory, self-understanding, and how to improve your experience of parenting your children.
Parenting from the Inside Out is not just a parenting book; it’s also a guide to understanding our relationships with everyone in our lives, most importantly, our relationship with ourselves. If you’re like I was when my kids were younger, you might be thinking that you want more direct instructions on how to deal with your child’s behavior, feelings, problems, and moodiness (to name a few). When our children exhibit their very human responses to life, we often worry that it reflects poorly on us—as if we're failing—or that it indicates they’ll never reach their potential. The societal pressure to have 'happy' children who achieve their fullest potential is what our hyper-competitive and hyper-consumer culture is based on. This pressure would have us believe happiness and success look the same for everyone, and they can be fixed states–if only we parent our children ‘right.’ Does this resonate with you?
The best advice I ever received (and resisted) was that the most important work I needed to do was on myself and my self-understanding. Often, moms are the ones who set the energetic foundation for how to engage with life. This isn't to suggest that we are at fault for everything that goes wrong (or right) in our children’s lives—it's far more nuanced than that, as is most of life and reality. The first tender soul you need to turn your attention to is your own while simultaneously parenting your offspring. This will look differently for every mother, but it will contain the same themes.
In her book, Good Inside: A guide to becoming the parent you want to be, Dr. Becky Kennedy has written a science-based parenting guide that emphasizes seeing both parents and children as inherently "good inside." I wish I had this parenting book when my kids were small. Dr. Kennedy is a clinical psychologist and parenting expert and offers practical tools and strategies for parents to navigate challenging moments with empathy and understanding. The book focuses on helping parents develop strong, emotionally healthy relationships with their children, teaching them how to manage difficult behaviors while maintaining a sense of connection, respect, and kindness. It covers topics such as setting boundaries, managing tantrums, and fostering emotional resilience, all while encouraging parents to recognize their own triggers and approach parenting with self-compassion.
Your Human System
Your nervous system plays a significant role in shaping your experiences. One aspect of our nervous systems is that they are not isolated; they become interconnected when we're in the presence of others. You've likely experienced moments when your energy shifted instantly in response to someone else's mood or behavior. This is because our nervous systems are constantly communicating, influencing, and being influenced by those around us.
You are responsible for your own nervous system, and it is your job as a parent to model how to take responsibility for it. So when someone enters the room and you are changed by their energy, take a moment to check in with yourself, and ask; What’s going on for me right now? What do I believe? What am I making this situation mean? Everyone is going around having their own internal experience, and you cannot know what someone else’s experience is. Not even your own child’s experience. So don’t make any assumptions about what is happening inside someone else’s nervous system and mind. Their discomfort is not an opportunity for you to fix something on their behalf. It’s an opportunity to create a safe space for them to share, whatever it may be, without trying to talk them out of it, fix it, or offer alternative viewpoints about what is ‘really’ happening. Our efforts to change how they feel make us unsafe to share upsetting things with.
There are many ways to care for your nervous system, and most are accessible without spending a dime. Don’t wait until you feel activated or dysregulated—take time each day to bring awareness to your inner experience. Mindfulness has been essential for me in this work. Mindful breathing or movement is a good place to start. A few more ideas: Gratitude Journal, Self-reflection journal, and guided meditations (I love the Insight Timer app). You only need one of these practices on a daily basis to create awareness and change for yourself.
Self-authoring is a powerful tool, which I think is very affordable (around $30) that is a structured way to journal or rewrite your story. The user begins by answering a series of questions to identify what their emotional or interpersonal challenges are. Then write about how each one of the identified problems has effected you in the past present and how to respond differently to the situation in the future. This method has been studied and is effective for self-understanding and developing resilience.
Communication Skills
The best explanation about healthy communication I have found is from Brad Reedy’s podcast episode “8 Communication Tools to Transform Your Relationships.” I don’t think I could say it any better than he does. Number 3 is one of my favorites, “Ask the intention of the other or state your intention when you share.” I will add just one thing to this which helped me tremendously in transforming my communication skills, and that is “Don’t believe everything you think.” So often we hold implicit beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world that influence our interactions with others. We are always operating from somewhere we’ve already been—it’s never really a ‘fresh’ interaction. Especially if your starting gate engagement with the world is defensive. Check those assumptions.
Boundaries
One of my favorite things to contemplate and discus, Boundaries! Let me start by saying that boundaries are not merely rules that you establish for your kids. Boundaries are for YOU. Dr. Brad Reedy defines boundaries as the way we take responsibility for our feelings, needs, and actions, while allowing others to take responsibility for theirs. Rather than attempting to control others or manage their perceptions, boundaries are about being clear on what is acceptable for us, expressing it, and holding ourselves accountable for maintaining those limits. Dr. Reedy emphasizes that boundaries are not about changing others but about being authentic and taking care of ourselves within relationships. They create a space for personal growth and emotional safety by allowing us to remain connected to others without losing ourselves or sacrificing our well-being. In my experience, this is hard to do in the context of motherhood!
In his book, The Audacity to Be You: Learning to Love Your Horrible, Rotten Self, Dr. Brad Reedy guides you toward self-acceptance, personal growth, and emotional healing. Dr. Reedy encourages readers to embrace their authentic selves, including their flaws and imperfections, as a path to true connection and fulfillment. The book focuses on understanding and accepting one's emotional experiences, setting healthy boundaries, and letting go of shame and judgment. Through a blend of personal anecdotes, psychological insights, and practical exercises, Dr. Reedy helps readers cultivate self-compassion, improve relationships, and develop the courage to live a more genuine and empowered life.
Loving Kindness
When meditation was introduced to the United States in the early 1970s, Sharon Salzberg played a key role in introducing Loving Kindness (Metta) meditation. Initially, this practice was sometimes perceived as being "too soft,”an often undervalued approach centered around compassion and gentleness. Despite this initial skepticism, Loving Kindness meditation has become one of the most studied forms of meditation, with research demonstrating its significant impact on well-being, emotional regulation, and social connectedness. Studies have shown that practicing Loving Kindness meditation can increase positive emotions and build personal resources, such as resilience and compassion, over time. Imagine if you could offer yourself loving kindness each and every day. Imagine if your kids did. How might their sense of safety and self-understanding grow within in their hearts?
Loving-kindness meditation has common phrases like May you be happy and safe, May you be held in loving-kindness, May you be healthy in body and mind. The practitioner is meant to silently repeat the phrases while focusing on metta and its target. Unlike a mantra that losses meaning with repetition, metta has multiple layers of attention; the phrases, the sense of loving- kindness, and the target of the offering. With loving-kindness meditation, we choose the specific phrases and bring to mind those we are offering loving-kindness to; ourselves, a benefactor, a friend, a neutral person, a difficult person, and then to all beings.
May you, dear reader, be happy and safe, May you be held in infinite-okayness, May you be well in body and mind.
