Exploring Your Assumptions About Parenting
: February 21st, 2012
: SKadmin A mother lectures her son about his used dishes unwashed in the sink. A father punishes his daughter for talking back and being disrespectful. A stepmother holds her tongue as her stepdaughter curses at her. A step father explains to his wife how she ought to ground her son for not checking in when he was out past curfew. Why would these parents, who are striving so hard at blending families, do what they do to their birth children and stepchildren? How do people learn how to parent their kids, let alone someone else’s children? In all cases, behavior is a result of a person’s beliefs.
And yet not very many adults know where their thoughts about the way they parent come from. For lots of adults, the way they parent is a result of how they were parented. The majority of thoughts about parenting are actually formed starting at infancy and get solidified by early childhood. These thoughts are so ingrained, and so much a part of a person’s make-up, that they are very unconscious and not very easily accessed.
By understanding what your thoughts are about parenting and how those thoughts originated, you get to find out that your thoughts are accurate or not. Kids have a different way of thinking and often make beliefs about the world that relate to their thinking process, and those thoughts are not necessarily based on true information. Adults find themselves acting badly to parenting problems in ways they never imagined they would, and they are often not aware of what is really running them underneath their actions.
Words are Cheap – Take Action
If you’re trying your best at blending families, take action towards pinning down your childhood conclusions about parenting by allotting some uninterrupted, secluded time together as a pair. Or, if you don’t have a partner at this time, choose to do this with another single parent to get some mutual support and benefit. Determine who will start sharing and who will ask the questions. Be prepared to switch roles half-way through so that each of you gets the same amount of time to share.
Ask curious questions about each other’s pre-adolescent years. Determine who the main parental figures were in each of your lives. Figure out how each of you was parented and what was effective in your life and what you wished had been different. Delve into the likely conclusions you made about being a parent as a result of how you were raised. Be engaged and interested in what your partner shares with you.
