The importance of parental confidence, and tips for boosting it!

Key points:

1. Parenting styles are unique and may vary based on personal values and beliefs.
2. Successful parenting involves a complex relational process that requires slowing down and taking time.
3. Parents who have confidence in their guidance and decisions usually have higher ratings of wellness and better communication with their children.
4. Strategies for boosting parental confidence include taking parenting classes, avoiding comparing oneself to other parents, being mindful and present during interactions with one’s child, and celebrating successes as a parent.

Although there are at least 4 identified and deeply studied parenting styles (according to Dr. Diana Baumrind they are the authoritarian, permissive, uninvolved, and authoritative, about which you can read on other articles of this blog), your personal style of adapting to parenting is as unique as any child-parent relationship can be.

You may hold some values as more important than others, or you might implement them in different ways. For example, while most parents will agree that cleanliness is important, one might focus on leaving dirty shoes at the door, other might emphasize table manners, while another one might focus on first exploring and then following a bath routine.

Furthermore, most of early childhood researchers and psychologists agree that successful parenting doesn’t look like the success we experience in other areas of life, like work, where you might measure your self-efficacy and accomplishment by considering speed and goal-checking. Parenting is a complex relational process that often involves quite the opposite: slowing down and taking time.

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According to experts, how confident you are of your guidance, learning, and decisions as a parent can be a good gauge of how you are doing. Developmental science has shown that parents who are more confident and perceive themselves as having good self-efficacy, even when they might struggle, usually have higher ratings of wellness, better communication, and are more efficient when teaching limits and positively reinforcing good behavior with their children.

For the above reasons, we’ve compiled a list of some strategies that you can adopt to increase your parental confidence while raising your little one:

• If you like parenting resources and they make you feel empowered, try taking a class, reading a new book on the topic, or participating on a parenting community. Nowadays there are some really good online options!
• Try not to compare yourself to other parents out there, especially on social media. Focus on your child, the amazing bond you share, and your strengths as a parent.
• If you have more friends that are parents, give them one sincere compliment about the strategies they might use, and you might get some feedback in return!
• Know that no other parent knows your little one as well as you do. When it comes to your child, you are the expert parent; so try to be mindful, but not overly harsh on yourself.
• When you share time with your child, try to stay present while interacting, as these moments will give you immeasurable information about your kid.
• And of course, make sure you cherish and celebrate all the learnings you’ve had as a parent! Parenting is no small feat, and you are rocking this!

If you have any other tips for boosting your parenting confidence, make sure to share them with our community in the comments below!