As any parent will tell you, we have been inundated with parenting advice in recent years. There is attachment parenting, gentle parenting, authoritative parenting 2.0, helicopter parenting, even bright interiors parenting. Yet, in spite of it all, kids’ mental health has worsened over the last decade. Among adolescents, diagnosed anxiety has increased 61% and diagnosed depression 45%. While the increases are less dramatic among younger children, they are trending upward as well.
It’s no surprise, then, that parents are eager to find the right advice or approach, not only for their child’s sake but to manage their own anxiety as well. While advice can run the gamut, from general approaches to specific strategies, most share the goal of getting the child to be better in some way, emotionally, behaviorally, or academically. Most also have have a central feature of talking, whether it’s being more supportive and encouraging, responding in the right way, or verbally mediating a child’s emotion or behavior.
But what if these core assumptions are part of the problem? Here’s a parenting approach that emphasizes making yourself, rather than your child, better.
Take a developmental psychology class
I have heard from parents that parenting is a chore, which of course it is, but also boring and a drudgery. Understandably this will be true at many points during the eighteen-plus years of hands-on parenting, but it should not be that way all, or almost all, the time. If you keep glancing at your phone or are itching to get back to your work, if being with your kid doesn’t capture your interest or attention, consider taking a developmental psychology class.
As a psychology professor, I find observing my kids quite fascinating. I see how they are thinking about the world, how they are adapting and changing, how each is different and unique. In other words, I am curious about them, and because of that I have a larger, more meaningful perspective in which to think about my parenting.
An attitude of curiosity without judgment or anxiety makes parenting much more interesting and fun, which ultimately makes you a better parent. The renowned developmental psychologist Jean Piaget spent hundreds of hours watching his toddler son with curiosity and fascination, which led him to develop concepts such as “object permanence” and “theory of mind.” Accordingly, “bad” behavior may also be understood from a developmental perspective; for example, when your toddler grabs a handful of spaghetti and throws it at the wall, a parent who is knowledgeable in development may understand it as the child behaving as a “naive scientist”—working out the laws of physics in their own concrete way. (Granted, you’d still have to scrape noodles off your wall, but you would be less alarmed and upset about it. I myself have tolerated broken doorknobs around the house for years.)
Talk about your own mistakes
Parents tend to focus on success, because they want their children to be successful. Take the old trope “When I was your age…” for example: Parents wish to highlight their hardiness, perseverance, and ability to overcome adversity. We don’t dwell on our failures and mistakes because we don’t want our kids to make the same mistakes. However, this is likely counterproductive. Everyone makes mistakes, as we tell our kids. To help them accept mistakes and realize they’re OK, tell them not only about your achievements but also your failures. The unspoken lesson will be that you got past it, though at the time it was difficult. Poke fun at yourself. Tell them about the crush that didn’t like you back, and how you felt devastated at the time.
Recently, I found some old exams from a physics class I took in college that I had completely forgotten about. I had received the abysmal test scores of 45 out of 120 and 39 out of 125—and an overall grade of C. The first thing I did was text my kids. By doing that, I showed them I wasn’t perfect, and therefore implied they don’t have to be either. And, without meaning to, I demonstrated that’s it’s OK to challenge oneself. That class was (obviously) not in my comfort zone, nor my major. Lowering the family standards sometimes can ease pressure, and you can have a good laugh together.
Do, not say
Most parents, including myself, tend to tell their kids what to do. Indeed, it’s a necessary and unavoidable part of parenting, but we also tend to overuse it. To wit, we may say to our kids, “Do as I say, not as I do,” but only half-jokingly. I propose we turn this around and simplify it: Do as I do. Period. Of course, it is then incumbent upon parents to behave better, to set an example for their kids. Either way, they are watching, and absorbing.
Another nice thing about this approach is you can stop talking so much. With apologies to Yoda, don’t say, just do. This applies not only to values such as honesty, integrity, and kindness, but to how you live your life. If you take time for your passions, your kids will learn to do the same. If you build your life around people and cultivating joy, they will take note.
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Ultimately, stepping back from using language and focusing on action yields more deeply learned lessons. One gains self-esteem from accomplishing something, learns perseverance by not quitting, and develops resilience through dealing with adversity. You can show them how it’s done by doing it yourself.
