Parents are under unrealistic pressure to always be ‘nice’!

It is just not possible! I get tired, irritable, annoyed, frustrated, down, depressed, upset—the list goes on. 

For me, parenting is about balance. Am I creating a safe space for my children? Am I working to improve on this every day? That is me as a parent. It is also the social narrative. What I feel is missing from the social narrative around children is an understanding that ‘safe spaces’ for children need to be safe spaces for parents. The simple truth is children can be toxic sometimes, and we, as parents, try to navigate them through their toxicity. It is not all learned toxicity with children; some of it they bring with them when they are born, some of it is theirs alone, children are born with shadows. Karma, call it what you will, past life experience. Children bring unresolved issues with them (but that’s a whole other post). Shadows need to be worked through in life. We are all here to grow beyond our shadow.

 

The focus here is defining ‘safe’. Understanding ‘safe’ is fundamental to how you live your life. It influences all your thoughts and actions, emotions, relationships with others, and relationships with yourself. 

For me, a safe space needs to be where caregivers can express their frustrations. I’ve worked with parents who are happy for children to have tantrums but are not comfortable with adults having tantrums. Why is this? If tantrums and venting are healthy for children, then they should be healthy for adults, too. 

 

We often imagine a dramatic and false narrative when we think about parents having tantrums and meltdowns, but they do. It happens when our inner child does not feel supported, listened to, or ignored, giving rise to anger, resentment and frustration. Long-held outrage is suppressed and glossed over into the adult world, where no outlet exists. This anger only surfaces when faced with the same issues and conditions of our childhood. Who triggers this? Our children. They bear the brunt of our anger. It becomes their anger, and we, voila, have generational trauma. 

 

A safe space needs to understand anger and trauma for everyone inside the safe space. It needs to understand what is healthy expression and what is not healthy expression.

For me, children must see parents and caregivers as human. We cannot present them with a false picture of the world. Parents hurt too, parents make mistakes, parents get upset, and we all do things we would rather not do, like shouting.

 

There must be a healthy dialogue about parents and primary caregivers. We must provide space and support for them within the dialogue and discourse. Children cannot be in a safe space all by themselves. They need to have their teachers, guides, parents, councillors, and anyone who tends to their needs in safe spaces, too. Only then can we hope to present a realistic picture of what safe means.

 

My children will see me vent. I know they are safe with me venting because I am comfortable venting. Sometimes, they hurt me or hurt each other or do something inappropriate. I talk them through it afterwards, always have, they know what I was going through and why I vented. We look at it from their point of view. We look at it from mine. They pull me up if I cross a line. I need them to know that venting is healthy. It’s healthy to disagree, it’s healthy to get angry, and it is healthy to get upset when someone upsets you. It is healthy to recognise if you cross a line. You cannot create a safe space for anyone if you don’t understand what safe is. The bigger the picture you build of what safe is, the better they understand their world.

 

I am not trying to be a ‘good’ parent; I don’t care for being ‘good’. I am trying to show my children how to be safe in an unsafe world. I am showing them how to define safe for themselves. So, as they grow, they learn to redefine the framework of the world to suit their needs. They will understand what safety should be and redefine it as needed. I am teaching them that if they don’t like what they see, feel, hear, do or think, they have the power and the tools to change whatever needs changing to find a better way, ultimately to find happiness and fulfilment.

 

From a life skill perspective, this is the best skill I can offer them. When you grow from a safe space, you flourish. Knowing how to survive is one thing. Knowing how to flourish is something very different. We all want our children to flourish. The problem presented to parents is children tend to learn through copying. They will copy your conscious and unconscious behaviour. To teach your children to flourish, you must first know how to flourish mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Having financial success alone is not enough to be happy. Happiness comes from a balanced view of the world. Make sure you give them one so they can see clearly. So they can make informed decisions. So they can rebalance themselves when they go off-kilter. Be kind to themselves when they make mistakes. Be responsible for their actions and happiness.

 

Teach these things to children, and they will become happy adults. Teach these things to adults, and they will nurture happy children.

 

For example, all the media talk around ‘screen time’ comes down to teaching children how to be safe and navigate the world of technology safely. Adults don’t understand the world their children live in. This has always been the case. Our children today live in technology; this is their world and the world of the future. They can’t protect themselves there or anywhere if they don’t know what ‘safe’ looks like. Knowing this is useful in every situation, a lifelong skill, and a fit for any situation, keeping them safe and encouraging them to flourish.

 

Teach them to be their own safe space, and you will never need to worry about them again. Well, almost never.

 

Need support with this? Contact me via email, Instagram, or whatever works for you: @tonymegwaicoaching, info@tonymegwaicoaching