Are you the parent you thought you would be?

Before you had kids, did you imagine what kind of parent you would be?  

Years ago (before I had children), I read a story about a boy that tried to pour himself a glass of milk from a pitcher.  The pitcher was too heavy, so he ended up spilling the milk all over the kitchen floor.  Instead of being upset, his mother took the time to work with him, filling the pitcher to different levels and then having him test pouring so he could see at what point the pitcher became too heavy.

I loved that story and decided that was the kind of Mom I wanted to be. I had visions of being patient and loving and dreamed that I would make my child’s mistakes into teaching moments.

Unfortunately, my reality did not match up with my visions.  I did not realize the stress of juggling two kids, running a house, as well as working full time would take me far from my vision of the parent I wanted to be — and instead have me reactively parenting based on my own emotional bandwidth that day.  Some days were okay, and other days had me cringing at the raving lunatic I became at times.

Looking back, I can see how I was parenting unconsciously based on old subconscious programs instead of intentionally parenting like the Mom whose son spilled the milk.  I didn’t realize how much my subconscious would drive how I showed up as a parent to my kids. 

Let me explain what happens in our brains to help you better understand: When we are intentionally thinking about how we want to act we are using our conscious brain — which takes a tremendous about of energy.  

Think back to a time when you were learning something new.  I often use the example of driving a car.  When you first learned to drive you had to think about every single thing — when to press the gas or the brake, signaling which direction you were going, turning the wheel, checking to see if there were cars coming or what was behind you, and keeping in mind where you were going and which roads you needed to take to get there.  While you are driving, you had to stay entirely focused on what you are doing, and you couldn’t think about anything else.  

By the time you reached your destination, you were exhausted.  You had been using your conscious brain the entire time, so you were using a lot of energy.

Fast forward to today — now you can decide to go to the grocery store without having to think about how to operate the car or what direction you need to go to get there.  It’s become a subconscious program that takes barely any energy at all.  Know that your brain wants to move as many activities as it can to your subconscious to conserve energy.  It will look for activities that you repeat, and it will develop and hardwire programs for them. 

Why is it important to understand this about your brain?  Because 95% of what we do is driven by our subconscious programming.  Only 5% of what we do comes from our conscious thinking.

And that’s what happens with our parenting too.  Unless we are paying attention and intentional about how we are parenting, we will be parenting unconsciously and allowing old programs to drive how we show up with our kids.

That’s what happened to me, and it made me not like the parent that I was being, or who I was when I was with my kids.  I kept trying to act differently and parent more like the mom I had admired, but I couldn’t change my actions until I changed the underlying programs in my brain.  I had to change how I was thinking before I could change how I was acting.

As we start a new year, I encourage you to ask yourself these questions:

How much of your parenting is happening unconsciously?
Are you showing up as the kind of parent you wanted to be?
Do you like who you are when you are with your kids?

If you are not happy with your answers, or if you just want to work on becoming a better parent this year, I encourage you to check out my upcoming workshop on Big Feelings.  It’s virtual and it’s free!   We will cover how Big Feelings affect your child’s behavior (and your own), and common mistakes many parents make.  Click here to register and take the first step to parent more confidently and have better relationships with your kids.