Parents who are hard on themselves

This was the last week of a seven week Priceless Parenting discussion group. One mom came up to me at the end and stated “This is the first parenting class I’ve taken where I haven’t left feeling like I’m a bad mom.” I was glad to hear that she felt supported as a parent instead of criticized.

Parenting is really difficult. Our children challenge us and cause us to grow in ways we never imagined before having kids. I give any parent taking a parenting class a lot of credit for working hard to be the best parent possible. These parents tend to set high expectations for themselves and are sometimes too hard on themselves when they don’t handle every parenting situation as they would ideally like to.

Another mom said she was so happy to hear in one of the lessons that it took me a couple years of practice before I was able to primarily respond with empathy rather than anger to my children’s misbehavior. She was pleased to know she didn’t have to accomplish this in just seven weeks! Changing your own behavior takes time, dedication and plenty of practice.

Taking a parenting class should increase your skills while leaving you feeling better about your parenting, not worse. While there isn’t one parenting technique that will magically work with all children, there are many approaches that work extremely well. I’ve tried to capture this information in the Priceless Parenting class so that parents can have easy access to this knowledge and enjoy parenting more.