Photography credit: Bethan Steddon

Dr Emma Svanberg is an award winning Clinical Psychologist, author of Parenting For Humans (Vermilion, 2 March 2023) founder of The Psychology Co-operative and co-founder of Make Birth Better CIC. She also facilitates a parenting community on Facebook called The Village – A Parenting Community For Humans. Here, she explains why quick fixes to parenting problems might not always be best the best solution.

Every time you scroll your phone you’ll find a new tip for parenting success. Some scripts to try for a tantrum, a sure-fire strategy for sleep, 5 things you absolutely should never say to a child. Lots of them useful. Lots of them contradictory. All of them based on ideas about children, parents and family which simply may not fit your unique family. 

Since I started working with parents, as a clinical psychologist specialising in attachment, trauma and the perinatal period (that is, from pregnancy through to the early years) I have witnessed an incredible increase in pressure on parents. Some of this pressure comes from our increased knowledge of the importance of parenting on infant and child development, particularly on the developing brain in the early years. It can feel that so much is at stake, that we have to get it just right or our child could be damaged. 

This pressure is added to by the context that we live in – a society that prizes perfection, achievement, and success. This combination has meant that, for many parents, parenting can feel like a never-ending checklist of things to accomplish with ever expanding ways to get it ‘wrong’. So, when we inevitably slip up and parent ‘imperfectly’, or the strategy we try simply doesn’t work as planned, we can be left deflated. Feeling that we have failed and, even, that we have irreparably broken our child. 

But what is parenting? It is the act of bringing up a child. It is getting to know that child – a whole, vibrant and fascinating human being – and spending a lifetime with them. Parenting is not something we do. It is one part of a relationship that we have. Our child is the other part of that relationship. 

To meet our child or children where they are, and as who they are, we need to let go of ideas of success and failure. To let go of the idea that parenting is an achievement. A parent is the person we are – all of us, our whole selves. The bits we like, the bits we wish weren’t there and the many in-betweeny bits. And we parent our child, as the person they are (and, crucially, not the person we wish they were). 

Sounds like a simple idea, right? Parenting as part of a relationship. But it is hard! Being a parent is hard work, because these little humans have a lot of needs and don’t always fit very easily into the world around them (a world which can often expect them to behave like little adults). But it is also hard because being a parent can raise so much for us about how we relate to ourselves, other people and the world. It leaves us thinking about how we were raised ourselves, about our current relationships, about what it is like to be a modern parent and the world we have brought these children into. 

Parenting strategies, quick fixes and word-perfect scripts can be helpful when we know how we want to apply them to us and our family. To do that, alongside getting to know our children, we need to get to know ourselves. To understand who we are and what we are bringing to our parenting. When we understand where we are coming from, we can figure out what belongs to us, and what belongs to our child. This enables us to see our child as who they are more clearly, less blurred by the lens of our own experience. Coming together as two humans in a relationship together means that we can come up with strategies collaboratively. We can let go of clever quick fixes and create our own solutions. 

5 Ways to Let Go of Quick Fixes

Question why you are looking for solutions

We tend to be drawn towards solutions because we’re feeling overwhelmed by a problem and we want the answer to be simple. We want to ‘crack it’. But children, and family life, is complicated! When we let go of finding simple answers, we can settle into the richness of family life (which can sometimes be a little chaotic!)

Question where you are looking for solutions

There are many parenting experts out there – speaking from professional or personal experience (or both). Before accepting their advice, ask yourself why you are giving them authority over your decision making. Experts (me included!) don’t know you or your family – what they can offer is generalised information which you can apply in a way that fits your individual circumstances. 

Cherry pick

So if you do trust that your parenting information is coming from a reputable source, hold on to the bits that work for you and let go of the bits that don’t. Use it all as part of an experiment, rather than something to get perfectly ‘right’. Some elements will work for you and your family, other elements won’t feel right for you. Some you’ll make up as you go along!

Know yourself to know your child

Getting to know ourselves can be hard work, particularly when we are sleep deprived and life is demanding already. But when we reflect on who we are, the values we hold and why, we come to our parenting with more honesty. We can make conscious choices about our family life.  

Look to your village

We hear a lot about how it takes a village to raise a child. But this conflicts with how isolated we often are as parents. The importance of having other parents around you as you parent is not only for advice or suggestion, but also for solidarity and support. What more experienced parents will often tell you is that you’ll figure it out over time, that phases pass and children change, and that it’s a marathon not a sprint. This can help us settle in for the long haul rather than focus on the urgency of problems as they arise.

Parenting for Humans — How to Parent the Child You Have, as the Person You Are (Vermilion, £16.99) will be published on March 2^nd 2023

Read more parenting tips and advice here.