To be a Good Enough Mother Must You be a Super-Mom?

 

The child-care guru D.W. Winnicott wrote about “the ordinary devoted mother.”  He coined the term “the good enough Mother.”

A good enough Mom nourishes the connections she feels between herself and her child and she takes care, not only of her children, but also of herself.

Science is aware of how the connections between us as human beings affect us at a cellular level.  Nowhere is this connection more powerful than that between mother and child.

For instance, science tells mom not to be tense around baby or baby will feel the tenseness and become an uptight baby.  This is enough to make a new mom tense if she interprets the information to mean that she has to always be relaxed when she is with baby.  But, it can be helpful information if mom interprets it to mean that she has to take care of herself and focus on her needs in order to enjoy and to nurture baby. Yes, a tense Mom makes for a tense baby but baby cannot make Mom tense.  Mom makes herself tense by the pressures she puts on herself and by not taking proper care of her own mind-body needs.

Of course mothering is exceedingly important for the well being of the child.  But, Mom let’s go back to Winnicott’s time and remember that being good enough is good enough!  After all, you are not a perfect person and so no task you undertake will be done perfectly.  Rule number one for parenting must be to take pressure off of Mom!  I don’t think this happens often enough.  Actually I think many mothers are experiencing parenting as a pressure cooker.

Go to any gathering of young women and you will find them chatting about their kids and their parenting styles.  There is, I think, an underlying feeling of anxiety and competiveness in the conversation.  Who does more for their child?  Who does it better?  I wish they’d talk about politics—–even in today’s partisan world there might be less anxiety!

Is how the kids turn out mom’s report card on herself?  Wow!  If so that is a lot of pressure on both mother and child.  Kids often believe that their grades, their popularity, their success in sports or the arts is how you evaluate yourself.  Once they know that they begin to act for Mom instead of taking pleasure in their own successes.  This, in the long run creates an internal feeling of emptiness and it diminishes a desire to achieve.

Children need nurturing Moms who are happy within themselves and don’t lean on their kids for their self esteem.

How can you be a good enough mother?

There is not a recipe for rearing perfect children.  But if there were, the first line would read, “Remove parental pressure and anxiety.”

Children are amazing creatures. They see the world with fresh eyes, alert awareness and an open heart.  They need respect for their way of being, love, kindness and firm but loving boundaries.  They will grow up to reach their full potential if they receive positive messages.

We reinforce what we talk about.  If a child is sloppy, note the times they pick up their clothes.  “I notice you were very tidy when you made your bed today” is a powerful message for change.  “Why are you always so sloppy” is a powerful message for status quo. Telling a child that she is happy, healthy, and smart will go a long way to helping her to turn out that way.

Love the children but love yourself first and in this way insure that you do a good job for everyone: child and mother!

Healing Depression the Mind-Body Way is about the creation of health and its by-product, happiness.  The healthy and happy person is grounded and operates from a well of stability and flexibility. The maintenance of health and happiness through Ayurveda and meditation is the best insurance for the creation of competent, happy children.  Sandra and I suggest that you put on your oxygen mask first and that you focus on enjoying the small creatures God has placed in your care.  Enjoyment, love, positivity are the antidotes for pressure and guilt!

As always, we wish you perfect health and happiness.

Negativity and its Destructive Power

 

Illinois State Police stand guard on Michigan Ave., Chicago, during a protest march as a part of this weekend’s NATO summit Sunday. Security has been high throughout the city in preparation for the NATO summit, where delegations from about 60 countries will discuss the war in Afghanistan and European missile defense.

My husband, Bud, and I spent the weekend in Chicago.  This metropolis, on the shore of Lake Michigan is a spectacular city.  We love to spend time there.  The architecture and cultural life delights us with its excellence and variety.

You may have read that this week NATO is convening in Chicago.  A convention of this size and power invites not only worldwide delegates, but also protestors wanting to be heard by the individuals in power.  Thousands of people lined the streets and parks in Chicago.  And, what seemed to us like thousands of police also marked the sidewalks and surrounded the beautiful parks.

In 1968 the violence between police and anti-Vietnam war protesters in the streets and parks of Chicago gave the city a black eye from which it has yet to completely recover.

Let’s all hope that the NATO convention doesn’t trigger the same type of breakout.

In 1968 it was the police, not the protesters who were held primarily responsible for the violence.  This was because of their reactions to a perceived threat.  Certainly the police in 2012 also perceive the protesters as threatening.

We saw police carrying bully clubs in their hands, angry scowls on their faces and we heard them yelling at sign-carrying protesters. These experiences reminded me of the power of negative interactions and how negativity can bring about violence.

We could feel tension in the air and sense a growing anger.  I heard one woman carrying an “end all wars sign” call out to a policeman who was corralling her off the sidewalk, “Why do you treat us like this?  We aren’t mad at you.  We are here for peace.” I’m sure there were some serious troublemakers in the protesting crowd, but the ongoing reactions from the police (that Bud and I observed) seemed over the top.

The Chicago police definitely desire peace and safety.  I’m sure in many ways they have done and are doing a terrific job.  However, if the reactions on the street that we observed are indicative of their general attitudes and behaviors then they will certainly bring about, at the least, some unnecessary skirmishes.

How we react to perceived threats is always pivotal in meeting our goals. I know the policemen’s goal was to insure a peaceful city but I wondered if they were unwittingly sabotaging themselves.  Watching their behavior I was reminded of how well meaning parents often sabotage their goals for their children by becoming oppositional and negative when they perceive a threat to family values.  I was reminded of the skirmishes that often occur between parents and children—-especially parents and teen-agers.

I was also reminded that industrial psychologists believe that one person carrying a negative attitude and exhibiting negative interactions can cause tremendous problems in a total work force.  I was reminded of how easily the human being becomes oppositional when he is threatened.  Unfortunately opposition usually brings about that which we desire to avoid as it increases opposition in the people we are opposing.

In sum:  I was reminded of the power of opposition and negativity when it exists in our personal lives.

My thought processes led me to a mental review of research on the TM technique and how that technique is helpful in creating peace.  Practice of the TM technique has been shown to create increased peace in families, in the work place and in society at large.

Scientific research informs us that negativity and oppositional tendencies are reduced through practice of the TM technique.  Ample research shows that meditating families are, in general, significantly happier than non-meditating families.  Research also shows that meditating families are able to avoid becoming caught up in escalating conflict.  Of course meditators experience stress but their physiologies are able to brush stress off instead of incorporating it into mind and body.

Many companies now suggest and support the practice of the TM technique for their employees.  Research shows that absenteeism, accidents and substance abuse are reduced while efficiency and productivity in these businesses increases.

In addition, at least ten large-scale studies, carefully controlled for all demographic influences known to affect crime, have demonstrated that when one percent of a population practices TM, the crime rate in that city or country drops markedly, as do the suicide and accident rates.  One study found a significant overall drop in crime rate in a sample of forty-eight American cities and reported results in the Journal of Crime and Justice.

There is no doubt that the TM technique helps the individual, the family and society avoid negativity and oppositional tendencies.  It helps us to avoid conflicts and tension and to resolve differences in a peaceable way.

In Healing Depression the Mind-Body Way Sandra and I discuss how the practice of the TM technique helps the individual in a myriad of ways.  In general we focus on the helpfulness of this technique to avoid and to treat depression.  Do you want to know more about the power of this technique?  If so I suggest you click on TM.org and read some of the impressive research that has been done on the effects of this practice.

You don’t need to be a protester in Chicago carrying an anti-war sign to make an impact on society.  Instead you can begin by creating peace within that radiates outward to all around you.  May I suggest that you investigate learning the TM technique?  One does have to pay to learn but no one is ever turned away for lack of funds.  Check it out.  Again—-that website is TM.org—-

As always, Sandra and I wish you perfect health and happiness.  Today we also wish you peace in your relationships, your work place, and in society at large!

Good Parenting Isn’t About Child Management Techniques: Let’s Take Care of the Parent First!

Has Amy Chua started a new trend in American parenting style?  Ms. Chua is the author of the controversial book The Tiger Mom.  In her book she advocates being an unyielding sort of parent who demands perfection (and long hours practicing the piano.)  She also advocates dressing down a child in front her friends for an offense as great as coveting a second cupcake.

 

Since the advent of The Tiger Mom several other books advocating strict parenting styles have been published.  They are also in direct contrast to the usual American books about parenting.

 

I think the enthusiastic acceptance of these recent books represent a sea change happening in American attitudes toward parenting.  American parents were considered to be permissive for many years.  Now the majority of American women work outside of the home, and they do not have the time or the energy to put up with much nonsense.  Being strict, and believing that is the way to go, can feel like a relief and seems to many to be an easier way to parent.

 

The dangers of The Tiger Mom, or Bringing up Bebe (which advises training children with methods from the French), or the new book (not out yet) about shaming a child into losing weight is that parents will adopt the recommended styles of parenting from these books.  Adopting someone else’s style is not the way to parent.  Good parenting is best done if you refine your own style. There is not, in general, a right or a wrong way to parent but there is a beneficial way to BE with children.

 

Parents need to be in charge of their kids.  Being in charge doesn’t mean making a child clean their room every Saturday at 10 a.m.  It also doesn’t imply forcing a child to spend many hours practicing the piano.  Being in charge denotes not being emotionally reactive, but staying grounded and objective in the face of a child’s emotionality and oppositional behavior. Being in charge requires using a sense of humor and having a lightness of spirit.  Because being in charge requires a lot of energy it is important that you feel physically, emotionally and mentally on top of your game.

 

Research shows that there are, in general, three distinct types of parenting.  There is an authoritarian style, a permissive style and an authoritative style.  Researchers have shown that the authoritative style works best for the development of happy, mature and successful children.  In this parenting style parents are supportive and nurturing. They are in charge, but they also set high expectations and clear and firm limits.  Makes sense doesn’t it?

 

If we are overly bossy the children will rebel and if we are overly permissive we sabotage the child’s efforts to develop self-esteem. If we set high expectations we build self-esteem.  If we build a nurturing foundation we encourage and insure that the child has the tools to meet those expectations.

 

With depression at epidemic rates how are parents going to get the energy to be authoritative?  Depression saps energy and overwhelms the spirit. Parenting takes a great deal of energy and even under the best of circumstances it is a difficult job.

 

I suggest that we turn our attention away from specific parenting techniques, and focus on fostering the wellbeing of parents.  At this time millions of parents and millions of children are depressed.  This is a drain on our countries greatest resource.  Helping a child to grow up is a challenging task.  This task isn’t doable if the parent is depressed and it becomes more difficult if a depressed parent is faced with a depressed child.

 

In Healing Depression the Mind-Body Way Sandra and I give the most up to date scientific information about the causes of depression.  With a plethora of research coming out that the anti-depressants do not work our book is a jewel offering natural techniques that do work!

 

In my many years of clinical experience I never met a parent who did not wish to do a good job.  What interfered the most in the achievement of that dream was not a lack of information about parenting techniques. Their own emotional issues got in their way.  Parents become discouraged and overwhelmed and often get stuck in communication patterns that fail to be helpful. In addition, it is not uncommon to find that a degree of depression drains the energy of all the members in a family system.

 

If we are to nurture our children, our greatest national resource, then we need to begin by focusing on ending the depression epidemic.  Health, your emotional, psychological, mental and spiritual health is the place to start if you want to become a terrific parent.

 

Healing Depression the Mind-Body Way can help you to create vitality. Vitality equals physical, emotional and mental energy.  You need a lot ofthat if you are to parent successfully.  Reading our book will be a good start in your quest to be an optimal parent.  Learn how to foster your overall health, create optimal vitality and the rest you will be able to figure out step by step in the way that works best for you and your family.

 

Sandra and I wish you success in that most important endeavor—parenting.

 

 

 

To be a Good Enough Mother Must you be a Super-Mom?

The child-care guru D.W. Winnicott wrote about “the ordinary devoted mother.”  He coined the term “the good enough Mother.”

It seemed that for quite a few years, after Winnicott’s time, Mothers were let at least a little bit off the hook.  They were no longer considered responsible for every little thing that went wrong with a child.  Mom was given a break and Dad was expected to become increasingly involved.

In the last few years has the pendulum swung back to extraordinarily high expectations for Mom?  I think it has and believe this to be a phenomenon fraught with danger for both Mom and child.

Psychology is a social science. There is often hard data supporting its suppositions but there are many times when accepted ideas haven’t left the theoretical realm. An example of this would be the idea, held for many years, that autism was created by a mother called the “refrigerator Mom.”  Imagine how much the mother of an autistic child suffered when this belief was held to be accurate.

While psychology has always touted the premier importance of mothering for child adjustment, current scientific data coming to us from psychoneuroimmunology and other areas of scientific inquiry is also telling us how pivotal is the connection between mother and child.  As this information reaches the mainstream mothers are having new pressures put upon them.

Science is becoming increasingly aware of how the connections between us as human beings affect us at a cellular level.  Nowhere is this connection more powerful than that between mother and child.  For instance, science tells mom not to be tense around baby or baby will feel the tenseness and become an uptight baby.  This is enough to make a new mom tense if she interprets the information to mean that she has to always be relaxed when she is with baby.  But, it can be helpful information if mom interprets it to mean that she has to take care of herself and focus on her needs in order to enjoy baby. Yes, a tense Mom makes for a tense baby but baby cannot make Mom tense.  Mom makes herself tense by the pressures she puts on herself and by not taking proper care of her own physiological needs.

Of course mothering is exceedingly important for the well being of the child.  But, Mom let’s go back to Winnicott’s time and remember that being good enough is good enough!  After all, you are not a perfect person and so no task you undertake will be done perfectly.  Rule number one for parenting must be to take pressure off of Mom!  I don’t think this happens very often though.  Actually I think many mothers are experiencing parenting as a pressure cooker.

Go to any gathering of young women and you will find them chatting about their kids and their parenting styles.  There is, I think, an underlying feeling of competiveness in the conversation, who does more for their child, who does it better?  I wish they’d talk about nuclear war—–there would be less anxiety!

Is how the kids turn out mom’s report card on herself?  Wow!  If so that is a lot of pressure on both mother and child, and don’t think for one second that the kids don’t know that their grades, their popularity, their success in sports or the arts is how you evaluate yourself.  Once they know that they begin to act for you instead of taking pleasure in their own successes.  This, in the long run creates an internal feeling of emptiness and it diminishes a desire to achieve.

Children need happy, loving mothers; not martyrs

How can you be a good enough mother?

Growing up is a difficult process.  There will always be problems.  Each child will have some problems during their growing years.  Parents are the best equipped to help their kids overcome difficulties.  They are the ones best equipped to help their kids out of problematic dilemmas. It may seem ironic, but the pressure filled mother often has great difficulty realizing that she may be the best one to help her child overcome a problem. She has put so much pressure on herself to be perfect that she has trouble acknowledging that she might need to make some changes in her own style to help her child.

The ability to be flexible and to make changes is an important aspect of parenting. Flexibility and change-making come from a relaxed and happy person; not from a Mom in a pressure cooker.  Guilt can also get in the way of making appropriate changes.  When parents truly believe a problem is their fault and feel guilty about it they can be resistant to making helpful changes.

There is not a recipe for rearing perfect children.  But if there were, the first line would read, “remove parental pressure and anxiety.”

Children are amazing creatures. They see the world with fresh eyes, alert awareness and an open heart.  They need respect for their way of being, love, kindness and firm but loving boundaries.  They will grow up to reach their full potential if they receive positive messages.

We reinforce what we talk about.  If a child is sloppy, note the times they pick up their clothes.  “I notice you were very tidy when you made your bed today” is a powerful message for change.  “Why are you always so sloppy” is a powerful message for status quo. Telling a child that she is happy, healthy, and smart will go a long way to helping her to turn out that way.

Love the children but love yourself first and in this way insure that you do a good job for everyone: child and mother!

Healing Depression the Mind-Body Way is about the creation of health and its by-product, happiness.  The healthy and happy person is grounded and operates from a well of stability and flexibility. The maintenance of health and happiness through Ayurveda and meditation is the best insurance for the creation of competent, happy children.  Sandra and I suggest that you put on your oxygen mask first and that you focus on enjoying the small creatures God has placed in your care.  Enjoyment, love, positivity are the antidotes for pressure and guilt!

As always, we wish you perfect health and happiness.

 

 

Rearing Children with Love and Compassion

Last Monday The New York Times published an article about a minister who advocates corporal discipline for children.  His belief is that “sparing the rod spoils the child.”  He and his wife have written a book about their theories of child management and the book has been well received by many people.

Unfortunately a few ideas from the book have been taken to extremes and two children have died as a result of their parents’ attempts to “discipline” them.  The reverend states that he did not mean for parents to go to extremes in corporal punishment.  I am sure he didn’t, but some questions remain unanswered.  Does sparing the rod spoil the child? Is physical punishment a positive way to teach children discipline and good values?  Last, but far from least, is physical punishment for children coming back into vogue after years of being considered (in most circles) unacceptable?

Let’s look at how psychology views these questions.

Hitting is negative attention but it positively reinforces behaviors.   In other words, hitting reinforces the very behavior which the parent is trying to extinguish. It doesn’t work as a child management technique.

The NY Times quoted the minister as saying that parents need to impart their values to their children and corporal punishment for behaviors contrary to parental values will work to accomplish this goal.  Is this true?  No, it is not.  Hitting doesn’t reinforce the values the parents wish to impart to children.  If a child is hit they become angry at the parents and rebellious to the parent’s value system.  Hitting insures that the children will metaphorically “leave” the parents.

It would be a huge step backward for our national culture and values if hitting children came back into vogue.  I believe that the great majority of parents wish to do well by their children and many are confused as to how to proceed.  It will be tragic if in their frustration and confusion they turn to hitting — a form of child management bound to fail if the goal is to rear adults who have good value systems and who reach their full potential.

Simply put, hitting children is abuse and abused children have two ways to integrate their experience.  Some children will tell themselves that they must be “bad” or else the parent would not treat them in such a way.  Other children will believe that they do not deserve the punishment and will become angry at the treatment they experience.  The physically abused child grows up feeling angry and/or believing that he or she is a bad person.  Neither of these scenarios works to create a happy and successful person.  Our prisons are full of grown up children who experienced physical punishment in their early years.

Children struggle to make sense of the world.  They intensely experience their emotions.  They are philosophers—existentialists—-figuring out the world and their place in it.  Children are like the sapling in a field full of large animals.  The sapling needs a protective fence or it will be trampled by the animals.  With protection the sapling will grow into a strong and healthy tree.

Children have slender shoulders and cannot be expected to bear the weight of a parent’s temper tantrum, which is what hitting usually amounts to.  They cannot make choices for themselves but need to be guided to the correct choice.  Parental guidance, not hitting, will help them to grow in values and moral judgment.

Discipline is an important aspect of rearing children.  Children do experience discipline as love when it is administered in a gentle and kind manner.  Yes, parents need to be in charge but being in charge never means being harsh.  The parent who is in change appropriately is in control of their emotional reactions and sets boundaries without acting out themselves!

Parents who are in physiological balance and who are not experiencing undue stress find the task of parenting to be smoother than those who are out of balance and stressed.  In our book Healing Depression the Mind-Body Way Sandra and I help readers to identify their state of balance or imbalance.  We suggest interventions for the creation of balance.

The best thing parents can do for their children is to take care of themselves.  If the parents are fully in tune with their emotions they will inevitably be aware of the futility of using the rod.  In fact, the physiologically balanced parent will tune in with the child and develop awareness of how the child is affected by their words and actions.   They will be able to develop effective limit setting techniques which help the child to grow in love and strong values.  Hitting or other abuse should never be part of those techniques.  The mature parent is aware of their emotions, processes them, and uses them as guides.  Maturity means not acting out feelings and anyone who says that hitting children is not indicative of acting out anger is fooling themselves—-and trying to fool you!

 

 

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