If you are a new parent, or a first time parent – congratulations! You are in charge of a whole human life. No pressure.
Many of the new parents that I see come from different walks of life. Maybe they are new parents for the first time and are young and inexperienced. Maybe they are new parents later in life because of an adoption of a child in need that they weren’t entirely expecting but nonetheless they are now “parent”. Maybe they are parents “again”, they’ve already raised their kids but it was decades ago; now due to unforeseen matters they are now having to raise young ones in their own sunset years.
Parenting is a challenge for everyone on this planet and even with the best tempered kids and the easiest going of partners there will be times that you sit back and think “Can I do this?”
Well, you can. You are! You are doing it.
There is no perfect parent and no perfect way to raise a child but there are ways to maximize this adventure of a lifetime.
The most common way to ease the concerns of new parenting is to normalize things. One of the most common questions I get asked with my clients who are new parents is: Is this normal?! And often times – it’s a yes. Just that reassurance and the knowledge that they haven’t screwed something up is enough to give parents the confidence to move forward in their parenting.
Other times I’m able to provide simple solutions to frustratingly sticky problems that parents feel they’ve tried everything to fix. This is also very common. In these situations I’m able to give parents the objective perspectives that are time proven to address an issue, and I’m able to describe to them what needs to be tweaked to make it work. Often times parents are doing the right thing – just in the wrong way. But as parents who are in the thick of it, it is so SO hard to see these minute details that make a world of difference.
Parenting isn’t easy. No two ways about it. But maybe, it doesn’t have to be so hard.
