We can make parenting easier by focusing on our role, not the outcome

Recently, I asked parents to tell me which of their two primary relationships was harder for them — their relationship with their spouse or with their children. When two-thirds of the respondents answered “with their children,” I was curious. What makes parenting so hard?

The fact I was wondering about this should give young parents hope. It’s obvious that by the time you’re a grandparent, as I am, you can’t even remember how challenging it was! Sleep deprivation, defiance, sibling rivalry, school crises, health worries, constant demands, and all the other challenges that characterize the parenting decades of one’s adulthood are miraculously forgotten when the kids finally grow up.

The Challenges

The majority of parents with children old enough to defy them are experiencing some form of “parenting stress.” Here’s what parents wrote:

Having to deal with each child’s personality and never being sure whether I’m doing the right thing.

I feel triggered by my children a lot of the time and I know it’s due to my own childhood issues.

There’s so much at stake, so much fear of doing things that could have irreversible long- term repercussions.

You’re married to one person (who has one set of needs), and we have so many children (with all their needs). Personally, I often find it’s too much to deal with.

Children are so needy, demanding, draining, and exhausting. I prefer going to work and dealing with comparatively rational adults.

My kids are impossible to please. Nothing I do is good enough for them. They complain and yell and don’t listen. You need so much patience and I don’t have it! I feel guilty all the time because I yell at them and I know I shouldn’t.

There’s no escape; it’s a constant pressure.

I find it hard to deal with my teenagers. It seems I always say and do the wrong thing as far as they’re concerned.

Causes of Parenting Stress

There are obviously two great causes of parenting stress: uncertainty and exhaustion. One can never be sure if one has done too much or too little or done it correctly or incorrectly or shouldn’t have even done it at all.

“Sometimes when my daughter is rude to me, I just let it pass because I don’t want to give bad behavior attention,” says one woman. “But then sometimes I’ll make her repeat what she said, but in a respectful way because I’m supposed to be teaching her how to express herself nicely even when she’s feeling frustrated.

But then sometimes I’ll acknowledge how upset she is because I know I’m supposed to help her with emotional regulation by acknowledging and validating her feelings. And sometimes I just can’t take it, and I send her to her room and tell her she’s grounded because, honestly, that’s what my parents would have done to me, and I never spoke to them like that!”

This parent has read all the “must read” parenting books, each encouraging a different type of response. Her head is filled with ideas, but standing in front of her right now is a child who is calling her names. Nothing she’s tried so far has stopped this sort of behavior from re-occurring when her daughter gets upset. She feels angry, helpless, and confused. Eventually, as these feelings build and repeat themselves, the parent is likely to suffer some form of burnout.

Making Parenting Easier

The right mindset can make parenting a whole lot easier. Much parenting stress comes from attempting to do a job that’s actually impossible to do: namely, raise a successful, well-adjusted, happy human being. Too many factors are out of our control for us to be able to do that. The other parent, the child’s life circumstances (school experiences, place in family, family situation, community, etc.), the child’s own inborn character, and the child’s free will, are among the many factors that play heavy roles in a child’s developmental outcome.

Once we drop our unrealistic goals, we can take on a goal that we can succeed at every day. This will greatly reduce parenting stress. Enjoyable parenting starts with self-compassion because, even when we set more modest goals, it’s a hard job.

Whether our strategies “work” or not is out of our control. For outcomes, we rely on Hashem. It’s not all in our hands and we don’t need to produce the “perfect” response every moment of every parenting day.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 696)