Some days I feel like I’ve got this whole parenting gig totally under control. We spent a couple of days at a friend’s house with Mikey last week and both Kyle and I walked away feeling like great parents. Our kid behaved wonderfully – he was cute, ate well, listened well (as well as a one year old does), went to bed well, and was a lot of fun. We were all superstars!
Other days I feel like I don’t know a thing. On Tuesday I went to a play group and spent most of our time there trying to keep Mikey from headbutting the other kids and wildly throwing his Cheerios up into the air. None of the things I’d done on the weekend to keep Mikey from dive-bombing down the stairs or randomly biting people worked in the playgroup setting. He fell backwards off the stairs and smacked his head while I had turned away to take a sip of tea, he stole the other kids’ toys, and had a ten minute crying fit. I left totally exhausted and feeling totally inadequate.
Both of these settings were very different, of course, but I’ve been thinking a lot about why my parenting style was so effective on one day and totally ineffective on another. I’ve also been trying to figure out how I might begin to expand my repertoire of strategies for dealing with my kid in all sorts of different situations. I’d love to be able to feel like a good parent everyday instead of a great parent some days and a terrible parent other days. So I’ve been doing some reading and have found a couple of parenting books that have been rather helpful already and thought I’d share them with you.
When I first had Mikey my mom bought me The Rules of Parenting by Richard Templar which I found both funny and helpful. It was easy to read and broken up into small chunks, something I really appreciated with a newborn around. Templar appears to have made a living writing books of rules (The Rules of Management, Life, Wealth, etc.) and while the book is clearly formulaic, it also stresses some really common sense rules including many that encourage parents to cut themselves some slack – something I really needed to hear in the early days of colic, poop, tears, and gross lack of sleep.
The book I’ve found most helpful so far is How To Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, the classic book that is on the shelves of educators and parenting experts across North America. I found it extremely easy to read, relatable to my situation, and very practical. It also contains pretty much every strategy that my parents ever used for dealing with us, which was a little weird and gave me a totally different window into my childhood. I would highly recommend it.
Have you read anything that you’ve found really helpful? Are there any other parenting resources you can recommend?
Happy Monday!
A
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