Parenting is a test of perseverance, endurance, and patience that all adults who choose to build a family must learn to overcome.
As adults dare to begin the journey of raising a child, they must overcome various obstacles aside from parenting, such as financial limitations, physical ailments, career aspirations, and interpersonal relationships, whether romantic or friendly. However, many adults with children may feel their parenting techniques are judged by their peers.
How to Persist Against Criticisms of Your Parenting
Avoiding criticism and focusing on the good can be difficult. Still, with these four essential parenting support tips, you can focus on your loved ones and your family and disregard the potential negativity.
Understanding Constructive Criticism
Let us start by setting the scene—it’s Monday, your coffee spilled all over your outfit, you have a headache, and… you’ve just been served a subrogation notice. However, as a new adult, a new insurance owner, and a new parent, you’ve never been taught what steps to take after getting a subrogation notice.
Overwhelmed by this new revelation and financial annoyance, you quickly become frustrated and accidentally yell a little too loudly at your kid by mistake. In response, your mother-in-law critiques your parenting approach in a less-than-compassionate way. Criticism can come from every direction. Family, friends, mutuals, coworkers, supervisors—all of these individuals in your life may criticize your parenting, whether or not it’s warranted.
Awareness of constructive criticism can benefit your parenting style and mental health, even if you don’t want to take it initially.
Forming Support Systems
So now that you know you should be vigilant in measuring what advice is from a place of love and what advice is from a place of scorn, you have to locate those who care about you with genuineness and aren’t coming from a place of fake sympathy or feigned care.
For this scenario, let’s set the scene again—as a full-time working adult committed to parenting their small children, a common struggle you may experience is finding the balance between working at the office and relaxing with family. After all, balancing time, money, love, and attention is the name of the game when it comes to parenting.
In this scenario, a loved one may ask to do some of your work for you, help the kids, or encourage you to spend more time with your toddler while they run your pesky errands. There are individuals that you should recognize and remember as your support system for you and your family—the keepers are the ones who support you as you tackle parenting instead of tearing you down.
Exercising Greater Patience
The decisions that come with being an adult can be endless, and parenting makes those choices even more difficult.
When it comes to parenting, patience is key. However, parents must be aware their patience should extend to their children, themselves, and those who do and don’t support them. Amid judgment, stress, and heartache, remember that treating others how we wish to be treated is the key to healthy relationships.
Everyone has a bad day every once in a while. Let’s say a family member, best friend, or partner lashes out at you for not disciplining, dressing, washing, or speaking to the little one right. Stop, breathe, and remember that one moment of discouragement does not mean this supposed support pillar of a loved one forever prays for your downfall; they may just be having a bad day.
As you hope your support system will encourage you in your moments of weakness as you challenge parenthood, don’t forget that patience is a two-way street. Be composed in the face of unexpected criticism, and don’t let it rub off into how you treat yourself or your kiddos.
Stop Pouting and Start Parenting
Parenting is many things, including rewarding, frustrating, stressful, adventurous, and even exciting. However, few people will try to tell you that parenting is easy. In the face of judgment from those we thought accepted us wholeheartedly and backlash from the children we want to see flourish and fly, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed and isolated.
In these times of difficulty, recognizing constructive criticism from hurtful criticism, establishing a social support system, maintaining patience through it all, and refusing to dwell on the bad are all key steps to overcoming any potential criticisms of your parenting that you may face.
