Regina Pally - The Reflective Parent: How to Do Less and Relate More with Your Kids

THE REFLECTIVE
PARENT

How to Do Less and Relate More with Your Kids

REGINA PALLY

W. W. NORTON & COMPANY

Independent Publishers Since 1923

New York London

I dedicate this book to my three children who taught me everything important I needed to know about parenting, and to my husband who supports me and boosts up my confidence whenever I start to doubt myself.

WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK

This book is the one I needed when I was a young parent raising my three children. At that time, I read all the parenting books. They all had great advice. But, unfortunately, the answers often left me feeling less confident than before. It was as if there were a right way to parent and, if I did not fit the mold, I might be harming my child. I felt as if I had a precious package to transport, but I was walking along a narrow path on a high cliff without guardrails. Every move had to be perfect or something terrible might happen.

What I eventually learned is that there is a lot more leeway in parenting than I realized and that I could be trusted to figure out for myself what my child needed from me. I learned that the path is much wider than most people think and that there are strong guardrails to protect you and your child from falling off the cliff. In fact, figuring out what I needed to know as a parent became part of my lifes work, professionally and personally. This book is my effort to share what I have learned. It seems to me from the parents I talk with these days that they need it now as much as I did back then.

This book draws on what I learned from my pediatric, psychiatric, and psychoanalytic training; my clinical work with patients; my studies in neuroscience; my personal experiences; and most recently my involvement with the nonprofit organization Center for Reflective Communities (CRC), strengthening the relationship bonds that children have with all the people who care for them. Through them, I learned that a parents reflective capacity is the factor most closely associated with healthy child development and can be protective against the negative impact of stress and adversity. CRCs guiding principle is that what matters most in life is relationships and that being reflective strengthens the relationships we have with all the people in our life.

Reflective parenting means understanding that everything your child does and says is motivated or triggered by something going on inside their mind, such as a feeling, an intention, or a belief, and that the same is true for you. Everything you do or say is motivated or triggered by something going on inside your mind. Reflective parenting involves two-way perspective-taking, in which you see the world from your childs perspective as well as your own. Being reflective enables you to do all the things that research shows are associated with children doing better throughout their whole life:

Understanding your childs perspective as well as your own

Having an open, flexible, and positive attitude toward your child

Tolerating ambiguity and uncertainty

Maintaining balance in how you parent

Regulating your childs distress and negative emotions

Finding solutions that best fit who your child is and who you are as a person

Fostering closeness while also promoting age-appropriate independence

What I have to say may be a little harder to take in than much of what is presented in other parenting books or offered by well-intentioned parenting experts, because I encourage parents to trust their own instincts and think on their own. I am hoping to counteract a tendency I see in much of what parents are reading and hearing about. All too often, ideas are presented in an overly simplified and formulaic way, which conveys the message that this is the right way to do it. The focus is frequently on what parents are doing wrong, while hardly any attention is given to what they are doing right. Many parents complain that they end up doubting themselves and feeling bad or guilty if they dont follow the steps advised. I hear similar feedback from teachers and clinicians working with parents: that so many parents believe there is some specific script or set of behaviors they should use, and that if they dont say or do things exactly right, they have messed up.

Much of what the books and the experts have to say is good, even terrific. But as good as it is, critical points are being missed. What is missing is a sense of nuance, flexibility, and openness to the fact that everyone is different. There tends to be an absence of humility, a lack of recognition that life is messy and so is parentinga failure to acknowledge that no matter how reflective we are or how well we do as parents, we will never be able to become perfect parents or to create children who have no problems. There is a lack of acceptance of the reality that so many situations are simply uncertain and ambiguous and that we cant always know what to do. There is also a tendency to ignore the biological perspective that even good things can go too far.

Although many parents believe that all they need is the right answer, I believe there are no right answers and that the best answer is one that the parent figures out is best for who their child is and who they are as a parent. I have chosen for the most part not to offer specific answers or advice for specific problems. There are plenty of these to be had from other sources, and I encourage you to find them if you need or want them. My contribution is a bit different. Instead of telling you what to do as a parent, I intend to help you think about how you parent and how you want to parent. Its a way of honing your thinking skills about yourself and your child. Its a way, I believe, that is more likely to bring you a sense of optimism and confidence about your relationship and about how your child will grow up into the adult he or she is to become. The angle I present is more focused on possibilities, seeing situations from multiple perspectives, and realizing that there are many equally good ways to parent.

The following section comprises three exercises to warm up your reflective mind and get you thinking about the ideas I present in this book. The first captures a bit of what its like to be a child, the second what its like to be a parent, and the third what its like to think reflectively.

GETTING STARTED: REFLECTIVE THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS

Imagine yourself being dropped off on Mars. You know nothing about how to survive on Mars. Hopefully, a kindly Martian takes you under their wing, keeps you safe, and teaches you the ropes. You need to be taught the Martian language, how to get along with other Martians, what is acceptable Martian behavior and what is not, what foods Martians eat and which to avoid, and so on. If youre lucky, your Martian guide understands and accepts that you know almost nothing and need to learn everything and recognizes that you need empathy and support in the difficult process of becoming a well-functioning Martian.

Imagine yourself as a gardener. Youve purchased a new type of plant to grow in your garden, though no one told you exactly what the plant is. All you know is that it needs soil, sunlight, water, and fertilizer, but you dont know the right amount or type. You are an observant gardener, however. You see whether you are doing it right by how the leaves and flowers look. Are they bright and vibrant, or wilted and yellowing? The plant grows and sends out branches every which way. You have to prune it so that it fits well in the garden. Your goal is to discover exactly what plant you have on your hands and what environment you need to provide in order to maximize its optimal development. You wonder, are you dealing with a rose bush, a cherry tree, an onion, or an orchid? What mixture of soil, sun, water, and food is best suited to the plant? What type of pruning is required? There are books, classes, and other gardeners to help, but as any gardener knows, each plant and each garden is a bit unique.