Thursday 19 January 2017

Perfection in Parenting is Hard

Anybody who is obsessed with achieving perfection knows that the quest to attain high quality or best of things can be very exhausting, as the person spends most of the times fretting over things that could go wrong rather than living in the best moments. Hence they end up missing out on a lot of important phases of life. For example, when it comes to parenting, parents implant the idea of a perfect holiday in the minds of the children and when things don’t turn out as the parents or children expect them to be, the problems starts to emerge.

Another reason for spending time on planning a perfect vacation for the family or with children is to make up for the parenting weaknesses people display in general. This means that those families who encounter or face problems with children may want to fix those in form of giving the children a perfect vacation. But the problem with this line of thinking is that the approach to resolving the issues is wrong despite the presence of good intention. Also, parents tend to associate unexpected results with the holidays.



In other words, the height of expectation creates the room for drama or hyperactivity that is bound to fail. This is not to say that the problems of the past year cannot be resolved, however, if you expect one perfect holiday to make them disappear without addressing the root causes, the situation or issue may get worst. Of course, the vacation can heal a lot of fissures and there is nothing wrong in attempting to make it enjoyable for the family, however, if the perfect holiday consumes your time in form of making you short tempered, or restless, the spirit of the break from the daily routine may be lost. This means that it is important to spend time with your loved ones rather than worrying about every little detail or perfection. In addition, the tendency to overwork on the holiday is another side effect that will not only affect you in terms of draining the energy, but the impact or implications will be felt by your family, which may defeat the purpose of relaxing break from the usual routine.

Accepting the Situation
Even though it may sound hard to implement in reality, however, if you practice acknowledging the problems and the overall situation in form of accepting your desires to fix everything and to be loved, it may help to ease down a bit rather overloading yourself with extra workload or planning. This also implies that self-appreciation and acceptance of the scenario are likely to help you address the situation in the best way. For example, in order to unwind or to relax, you can make yourself a cup of tea or coffee to enjoy the beautiful landscape or read one of your favorite books. In other words, if you want to love your children and partner, it is necessary that you love yourself as well, as it helps to take care of the loved ones in a better way since you feel positive and revitalized.



Guilt
If you are one those parents who like to buy expensive presents for the children and you haven’t been able to get one in the last year or on the birthday of your child,  it is better to remind yourself that it is okay to not get what you really wanted to for once rather than feeling guilty about it. For example, if you like to get your toddler toys and if you don’t get that for some reason, it does not mean that he/she will stop loving you. This is not to say that giving present to children is not important, however, if you spend time with them or play the favorite game with them, it could help to make them happier or it will be probably more valued by children. Similarly, if you dread the moment when your children will say that you have not been perfect at the parenting, it is okay to accept that as parents, as parents in general, cannot be perfect or very good all the time. In fact, if you know how to apologize and fix the problems with the children, that can help to save you from a lot of parenting troubles.  In simple words, the significance of spending time with your children and listening to them is what makes the bond stronger rather than relying on materialistic things.

Prefer Things better than Perfection
Although buying expensive things or booking resort vacation can be relaxing for some families, however, if you rely on the things to fix the emotional problems, you may be mistaken. This is why it is important to work on building and enriching the bond or connection with your children rather than looking for shortcuts. Likewise, some of the children enjoy the company of the parents in games and daily activities. Moreover, if you are somebody who likes to cook and if your children have the interest in it, you could cook or bake something together to cherish the spirit of being together and living as a family.



Healing Practices
If your problems with the children trace back to your emotional issues of childhood, working on them may provide you the first step towards repairing the damage, Similarly, if you accept the presence of problems and how they influence the anger management struggle with your children, the acceptance or connection of the dots will bring you to the point of  finding the healing practices as well.  For example, some of the parents suffer from things they didn’t have, as result, they force the children to enjoy those, but in reality, it is the problem of the parent rather than the children. And forcing few options on the children is not very helpful either. The trick is to identify your past problems from the problems of your children in order to come up with the appropriate response. Additionally, if you want to manage your short temperament issues, practice few of the deep breathing exercises before you respond to your children angrily or losing your temper. Moreover, talking about problems with children may also help to bridge the gap between you and them.

Let Go
It is necessary to practice letting go of your perfectionist tendencies, work on them every day to make yourself realize that setting the high expectation for yourself may damage you or your temperament in the longer run. Similarly, good parenting does not mean that you don’t make mistakes or things have to go according to the plan always, but the best trait of good parents is that they don’t let small obstacles get to the head or ruin the overall holiday. Rather most of the parents look for ways to make things work or they make the most of any given situation.