Good Enough

It’s the first day of the second-to-last month of the year, how are you?
Let’s all just take a deep breath.

NICE!

I admit to borrowing liberally from someone else’s post today, and it’s just too good not to share. Peter Gray is a Research Psychologist and neuroscientist at Boston College. He writes extensively on the importance of play, especially “free-range” play in the great outdoors. I am enjoying reading his work immensely. You can find out more about him on his website: https://www.petergray.org/. Lots to browse, I highly recommend you do!

Prof. Gray sent out an email this week on good enough parenting, and I wanted to share the summarized highlights. I feel this is a great follow-on from the blog I wrote recently on Being Deeply Human (You can read it here: https://lindasmallbones.com/being-deeply-human/).

Prof. Gray draws on the work of Bruno Bettelheim, who wrote a book entitled A Good Enough Parent (1987).

Here are some key definitions of what a good enough parent is:

• A good enough parent is first and foremost not perfect.
  They do not expect perfection from themselves, nor from their children.

A good enough parent respects their children and tries to get to know and understand them as individuals.

• A good enough parent is more focused on the child’s experience of their childhood—now—than they are with the child’s future as an adult.

• A good enough parent provides help with what their child wants and needs, but not more than they need or want.

• Good enough parents use conscious reflection, grow in maturity, and use empathy in their parenting.

• Good enough parents are confident that their good enough parenting is good enough.

I think these are pretty powerful… what do you think? An interesting exercise would be to journal through these points and reflect on them.

Did you know, in the Parent Conversations sessions starting on Monday, we will be exploring some of these concepts of being a good enough parent? I believe this small group format is a place where you can start to feel confident as a parent, with plenty of space for conscious reflection, mature approaches, and developing empathy.

Also coming up next month is a FREE journaling session!