The Parenting Puzzle
I think we can all agree that parenting is not exactly a breeze - a lot of the time we’re winging it and hoping for the best. Sometimes things work out, and sometimes they don’t, and we don’t even know if it’s because of what we did or if we just got lucky!
I remember this started right from the word go when my kids were babies and we were trying to get them to sleep through the night. I read up on all the recommendations and tried all of the things - sometimes they’d sleep well, and more often than not they wouldn’t, and I’d never really know for sure why, or what was the thing that was making a difference. There’s always people who will think they know - they’ll tell you, ‘oh they need a top up of milk at 10pm and then they’ll sleep through’, or ‘you’re not wrapping them tight enough’, or ‘you’re wrapping them too tight’…
My point is that a lot of the time it’s hit and miss - it’s a bit of a puzzle really - not just when they’re babies, but all along - we’re just trying to help our kids and we’re looking for the ‘right’ way to do it - and sometimes things seem to ‘work’ and sometimes they don’t, and we spend a lot of time just guessing. Maybe you can relate?
When it comes to trying to solve this parenting puzzle, we want to take a look at ALL of the pieces. What I came to realise was the way I was trying to solve it - and the way most of us try to solve it - was by just looking at ‘What can I DO - what ACTIONS can I take - to help my child?’, and I wasn’t even considering that there might be another part of the puzzle.
Seeking answers outside of yourself - reading countless parenting books, asking experts, seeing specialists - is one way you might be looking only at the ‘action’ part of the puzzle. All of these things can be helpful - don’t get me wrong - but unfortunately that’s often where we tend to stop. We think this is the only piece of the puzzle. We believe that there is one magic solution and once we find the thing that works then we’ll be done and we can just keep doing that.
What I want to offer is that there is another piece of the puzzle that we often don’t even consider - and that’s what is going on for us internally. What is our mindset around the situation, the problem or the challenge? Most of us don’t spend much time looking at this and trying to change this - in fact, many of us don’t even realise that we can change this and we don’t know what a massive difference it can make.
What we actually have then are two pieces to the parenting puzzle. One piece is what we are doing, our actions - the tools, strategies and supports that we have in place, and the other piece is our mindset - what we are thinking and feeling.
What many of us do is spend most or all of our time on this one piece of the puzzle - this ‘action’ part - and we neglect the other part - the mindset part. This is a problem because it’s this mindset part that actually makes the biggest difference. I would go as far as to say I believe effective parenting is 80% mindset and 20% actions. And not only that, but when you are dedicating the time and energy to work on this 80%, all of sudden the other 20% actually starts working and being more effective.
When it comes to the first piece of the parenting puzzle - the tools, strategies and actions you are taking, it’s important to realise that you get to choose this part. There is no one ‘right’ way to do things - despite what some ‘experts’ might tell you. You need to try different things that feel in alignment with you and who you want to be. You need to like your reasons for choosing to do what you do, all the while knowing that this part of the puzzle alone won’t make a big difference if you don’t have the other part of the puzzle sorted out.
Your mindset is the other part of the parenting puzzle. This is everything you are thinking and feeling about what is going on - what are you thinking about what your child is doing or not doing and what’s happening for them? Your mindset is going to determine how you show up as a mum and it’s going to fuel whatever you are doing - it is fueling the action part of the puzzle. Your mindset is determining whether or not the actions you are taking are even able to work. Sometimes it might not be that there's anything ‘wrong’ with what you are doing, but your thoughts and feelings are all out of whack and that’s making whatever you are trying to do not work. When we can play around with and challenge and change your mindset, that’s when things can change - this is how you show up as the mum you want to be and help your child more effectively.
In order to put the two parts of the puzzle together we need to take a look at what is going on - we want to know what you are thinking and feeling about the situation, and we want to look at how that is showing up in what you are doing and how you are doing it. In this way, we are looking at both the mindset and the action parts of the puzzle. If you are addressing BOTH of these areas you will begin to make progress.
NEXT STEPS
If you want to know how to apply this practically to something you are dealing with at the moment, try this process:
Choose one thing that’s bothering you - try to make it narrow and specific (e.g. it’s not going to be ‘my teenage daughter’, but rather ‘my teenage daughter told me she was doing her homework but she’s messaging her friends instead’).
Write down everything about it - what happened, what they did or said, what you did or said.
Then write down all of your thoughts and feelings about the situation.
Now we look at the ‘action’ part of the puzzle - what actions have you been taking? What have you been doing? What strategies have you been using (if any)? Are those actions helping? How are you feeling when you are doing those things? How are you showing up?
Next we look at the ‘mindset’ part - are your thoughts and feelings about the situation serving you? Do they have you showing up as your best self?
In what ways is your mindset impacting your actions? Is it helping you or is it making it harder for you to do what you need/want to do in this situation?
WANT MORE HELP?
If you want more support going through this process, make sure you are a member of ‘Thriving Mums’ - my private FacebookTM community for mums of kids with unique needs - where you will find more information on how to manage your mind and your emotional life so you can feel a greater sense of peace and confidence in your parenting. Click HERE to join now.
I hope you’ve found some suggestions that help you make progress towards solving the parenting puzzle. I would love to hear from you - did you try the process I outlined? What worked? What didn’t work? Is there a particular area of parenting that you would like me to address in a future blog post? Let me know by sending an email to jenny@jennypercy.com
