The Lessons of Parenting Past…
This month’s guest blog post is by Dr. Bethann Cinelli, Executive Director of CTC.
During the past year, I have been the other half of the Chrissie and Bethann Parent to Parent podcast series. I looked back over the topics we have covered in our 20+ podcasts including parenting, communication, cannabis, dealing with feelings, setting boundaries, and mental health. My role in the podcast is to present the parenting perspective from someone who has successfully (or not) navigated the challenges of raising children into healthy young adults. My children Aubrey (25) and Joshua (28) would be the best to determine my “parent score” but, I am willing to share with you my short list of “things” I would tell my younger parent-self now that I am in a different parenting space.
When I was parenting young children, there was no internet, google, social media, podcasts, or blogs (I can’t believe I just put that in writing). This does not mean I didn’t consult parenting experts, it's just that my experts lived in a plethora of parenting magazines, and old-school books, with lots of post-it notes and yellow highlights. And I truly consider this a blessing – I don’t know how I would have parented with the overabundance of advice, opinions, and the endless interruption of the cell phone.
As I listen to our podcast, I do have cringe–worthy parent moments when I think back to how I responded or handled challenges and how an alternate response would have changed the situation outcome. Fortunately, I find my memory tends to recall my parenting “wins” over my parenting “bloopers”.
So in the spirit of “what I would tell my younger parent-self”, here are a few lessons learned:
Listen more, talk less. I blame this on my struggle to disengage my teacher role from my parent role. The impulse to fix or control or make the path forward easier is a natural parent reaction, but in the long run, the need to experience loss, struggles, and gain grit and resilience is significantly impacted.
Slow down and simplify. Even during the dark ages of my parenting, it was difficult to protect family time, make school part of our life but not our entire life, carefully select what we do and how we spend our time, and not get caught up in the race to nowhere. Make time and space to just be present. The superpower to fight off distractions, and “parental guilt” over academic, athletic, and artistic, decisions requires a Herculean effort.
There is no perfect family. Although families may appear on the surface to have life and parenting figured out, that’s never the case–they are just better at hiding the struggles.
Trust your heart and gut. This truly is the best parenting advice I would want my younger self to believe. There are times when you will need the support and guidance of experts to help you and your family, but listen to your parental intuition–you know your kid best.
As my rock climbing friends remind me when I am convinced a climb is going to end badly, they cheer, “You got this!” It is with this mantra and the grace of my children Aubrey and Joshua that I embrace my parenting past and share the adventure of parenting with adult children.