Why We Must Revolutionise Our Parenting
I think I read Philip Larkin’s poem, This Be The Verse when I was in my thirties, and it definitely resonated with me. It’s the one that talks about what parents do to their children. Compared to thousands of children, I made it to adulthood relatively unscathed, but my parents still dumped some of their baggage on me during my formative years.
My mum did a better job of parenting than my dad, having promised herself as a young woman never to subject her children to what she’d endured as a child. My dad was more ignorant and self-centred than malevolent and calculating, but I was nevertheless left with insecurities that took years to overcome. When he died in 2017, the disappointment at not having the dad I believed I deserved disappeared. In fact, I owe him a debt of gratitude; I wouldn’t be the parent I am if he hadn’t been the parent he was.
Growing Up in the 21st Century
Given the state of the world today, with its impending climate catastrophe, the psychologically and emotionally damaging impact of social media and now, the as yet unknown economic and social fallout of the pandemic, we need to future proof our children and young people against an uncertain world, and to do that, we must change the way we parent current and future generations. I’ve often marvelled at how we expect technology to improve in line with our expanding knowledge, and yet it doesn’t occur to us to ‘upgrade’ our thinking about relationships so that we are better able to deal with the unpredictable times we’re living in.
The African saying, ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ no longer applies, and family ties have loosened over the last four decades as people have moved away from their place of birth to take up jobs elsewhere. The teacher’s word is no longer law. The church, which once upon a time could be relied on to keep children on the straight and narrow, is a building that now stands empty, and simple recreational activities have been rejected in favour of Play Stations. The iPad has become the new babysitter, standing in for parents who work stupid hours just to pay the mortgage.
Ticking Time Bomb
With mums and dads too tired at the end of the day, creating the headspace to reflect on how our children are really doing is not always at the top of their to-do list, and the results are there for all of us to see: young adults are susceptible to experiencing mental health problems, and 75% of lifetime mental illness begins by the time they’re twenty-five.
From eating disorders to addiction, young people are on the sharp end when it comes to mental health issues. In its report on young people and mental health, www.local.gov.uk stated that by the age of seventeen, a quarter of young women are experiencing mental health disorders, with half of them admitting that they have self-harmed or attempted suicide.
In the same report, we learn that children from families experiencing financial adversity or family break-up, along with LGBTQ youngsters, are particularly susceptible to mental health problems.
So, is it possible for children and young people to escape this apparent mental health epidemic that’s marring what should be the most carefree period of their lives? At the risk of sounding glib, I would say yes, it is, but the work required to raise emotionally healthy children has to start before they utter their first words. I checked in with my psychotherapist friend who has spent nearly two decades working with teenagers, and she assured me that while parents may not be able to prevent mental health problems, changing how they approach parenting can make a difference.
The approach I’m advocating is called ‘conscious parenting’.
Why I Think ‘Conscious Parenting’ is the Answer
Dr. Shefali Tsabary, a clinical psychologist from Columbia University, defines the conscious parent as ‘one who is intentional about moving away from the traditional paradigm of parenting’. If we think about the Philip Larkin poem, conscious parenting would be where his mum and dad’s style of parenting is rejected in favour of one that is more loving and supportive. One that engenders self-confidence.
Conscious parenting, or as I sometimes call it, parenting with emotional depth, requires the primary carer to keep in constant focus the physical, psychological and emotional wellbeing of their child while simultaneously having an eye to the long-term benefits of the decisions they make about how they parent.
Being a Conscious Parent
When my daughter was five years old, I started to think hard about the kind of parent I was. I concluded that I needed to think deeply about the things I said and did and take action on my thoughts if I felt I could do better. The first thing I did was reflect on how I had been affected by my parents’ interactions with me. For example, my dad’s reaction to my ‘transgressions’ was to stop talking to me for a few days which left me feeling unworthy of love. I needed to ensure I didn’t do the same thing to my daughter.
I made a commitment to take the good things from my parents’ child-rearing ‘repertoire’ (my mum was very good at moving on quickly after she’d told me and my sister off, so we knew we were loved unconditionally) and discarding the bad (I had to learn to stop sweating the small stuff). In addition, I encouraged my daughter to respect her feelings, even the ones we were taught were wrong or shameful. Everything was up for grabs because growing up was about exploring our emotions and making sense of them.
My job as a mum was also to stay in nurturing parent and/or adult mode. I would often have to ask myself whether my words and actions were motivated by my own desire for an easy life, or the psychological, physical and emotional needs of my daughter. A very simple example is that I made the decision to switch the television off during the week because I didn’t want my daughter to become reliant on external entertainment. I wanted to encourage creativity. This meant more work for me as I’d need to model creativity to her. Plus, I couldn’t use the television as a babysitter. The long-term benefit was that she took up dance and art, and at the age of twelve, started a card-making business with her best friend.
Another thing I did – though this was circumstantial rather than deliberate – was walk. A lot. My daughter and I walked to school every day for the whole of primary school, and she continued throughout high school. This has had two effects:
1) at twenty-three, exercise is an integral part of her life, and
2) she’s confident when it comes to travelling late at night through the streets of London.
Towards Self-Actualisation
For me, conscious parenting has been about more than instilling confidence in my daughter to roam the streets of London: I’ve had to learn to listen carefully to what she tells me, making sure that I’m hearing what she has to say rather than what I want to hear. And I’ve had to remove my own filters of fear, judgement, tradition, or disapproval so that I can support her. But don’t get me wrong, conscious parenting hasn’t made me a permissive parent, far from it. An important aspect of being a parent with emotional depth is that I instilled in my daughter values that I considered important like kindness, honesty and respect for others. And at the same time, I made it clear what was and was not allowed, so she wasn’t going to parties when she was sixteen and backchat was not tolerated. She was never in any doubt that I was the parent because the boundaries were clear. But at the same time, she was able to share her deep concerns because she trusted me to respond in a nurturing way.
I wouldn’t say it was easy, going from a regular, good enough parent to a conscious one, but the rewards have been amazing: sure, my daughter has problems that she has to contend to, but how she differs from so many young people is that her conviction that she is a good and decent human being in spite of the challenges she faces is unshakeable, and she has an inner confidence that allows her to accept herself unconditionally.
Job done.
Written by Laurie O’Garro
When the country’s not in semi-lockdown, Laurie works for the Metropolitan Police and pursues a craft called ‘string art’. Her daughter is currently in her final year of university, studying online in London. Laurie also writes poetry and flash fiction.
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