February 25: Parenting Influences

When I meet with parents for an initial consultation, I often ask them to tell me about their parenting influences. I’m interested in what parents read, whom they talk with about parenting decisions and experiences, whom they follow, and, in general, where and how they obtain information and knowledge about parenting and child development. As part of this conversation, I’m also interested in people’s personal experiences – how individuals were shaped by the people who raised them.

Spending some time reflecting on childhood experiences can be such a useful way to help caregivers think more strategically about their own parenting style. Below are some questions to consider. If you were raised by more than one adult, I’d recommend answering each question separately for each caregiver (when appropriate):

• Who were my primary caregivers when I was a child?

• Did I have other adults in my life who, while not a primary caretaker, provided significant social, emotional, or psychological support?

• How would I describe the parenting style used with me when I was a child?

• What was my parent’s approach to behavior management, limit setting, or discipline?

• When did I feel most connected to my caregivers?

• What was happening during the times that I felt misunderstood by the adults around me or felt disconnected from them?

• Are there ways that I want to model my own parenting after the approach that was used with me as a child?

• Are there unhealthy patterns that existed in my family of origin that I want to change or disrupt as I raise my own children?

After you have set aside some time to consider these questions, I’d suggest connecting with a partner, family member, close friend, or therapist with whom you can discuss and process your thoughts about how your past experiences might be influencing your parenting style. Some patterns might be clear and easy to identify. For example, “My parent did a great job of making birthdays feel special and I want to replicate that with my own children,” or “I was raised by a parent who yelled all the time, and I want to break that cycle.” Other patterns may be more subtle and may take more time to unpack. Spending time reflecting on the parenting behaviors from your childhood that you hope to mirror as well as the patterns you would like to disrupt can help raise self-awareness and help identify unconscious bias that may be influencing present day interactions with your children.

I don’t view this as a ’one and done’ exercise. Rather, as family members grow, change, and enter new stages of development, it can be useful to pause and reflect on ways that your caregivers managed particular developmental phases (the tween years, adolescence, etc.) and to consider what elements of those dynamics you want to either use as a model or consciously disregard. If you find yourself repeating past patterns that you were hoping to move beyond, please be gentle with yourself and remember that inevitably we are all influenced by our past experiences.

Almost every parent I know has had the experience of hearing themselves echo words that their parents used when they were younger and that they had previously vowed never to repeat. If you slip into an old behavior pattern with your own child, remember that one way to change the pattern is to pause or take a break so that everyone’s nervous system can re-set, then apologize and repair. By apologizing and acknowledging that you hope to respond differently next time you are providing your children with information about the values that are important to you while also modeling the process of making a mistake and taking responsibility.

By being thoughtful and mindful of the ways one’s past has influenced the present, parents can try to disrupt automatic patterns and approach parenting in a more intentional way. Finally, if you are seeking more information about different parenting styles, please see my newsletter from December