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What's Your Parenting Superpower?
How do we accept ourselves as good enough parents?
What are our superpowers as parents?
These are the questions that were posed at a recent Pikler USA Webinar, “Parents to Parents: Empowering one another and walking hand-in-hand.” The event featured expert panelists Janet Lansbury, Lisa Sunbury Gerber, Dr. Tracy Epps, Hari Grebler, Pia Dögl, and Elsa Chahin.
So how do we accept ourselves as good enough parents? What qualities do we possess that help ourselves find resiliency? We are all working so hard to provide the best life for our families. We are constantly juggling a number of tasks, along with a number of emotions. Our efforts to keep our household at peace and those in it safe and healthy can often leave us feeling like failures when we compare ourselves to our expectations of what it means to be a good parent. The truth is, being a good parent, means being a “good enough” parent.
It means that each day we start over, and we do our best and our best is good enough. It means loving ourselves through our mistakes and remembering that without self-care, we cannot fully show up for our children. Being a good enough parent starts with acknowledgment. By acknowledging what we bring to the table and voicing the strengths we possess, we can remind ourselves of one simple, yet invaluable truth; we all have a superpower.
It may seem silly to take the time to acknowledge these qualities within ourselves but we forget what a powerful tool it can be. Here are a few of the superpowers that the panelist shared about themselves as parents:
Janet Lansbury, Specialist in Parent Education
Vulnerability and sensitivity. By having these qualities, I am able to give myself permission to not have all the answers. I can say to my children, “I don’t know or I’m sorry I messed up.” These are qualities that are freeing and allow me to come back from my mistakes or difficult moments with openness and kindness.
Pia Doegl, Author and Parenting Counselor
Being fully present. When I set aside all the knowledge and approaches to parenting I have learned, and just let go, I can be fully present in the moment with my child. When all else fails, and am struggling to find the right answers, I find that letting go and just being with my children, is the best thing I can do for both of us.
Hari Ereble, RIE Associate
I live in a hot-headed home. We all have tempers. Instead of striving to never get angry, I focus on how quickly I can return from those feelings. How am I able to recover? I allow the feeling and then work on how to repair it. In this way, we can say we are sorry and work on making better choices rather than trying to avoid being human.
What’s your superpower?
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Sinai Akiba Academy is a private Jewish day school in Los Angeles, serving students in Early Childhood through Grade 8. We also offer a variety of parenting classes and programs for children through our Parenting Center. A Sinai Temple school.
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Sinai Akiba Academy admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.