Did you Parent Differently this Weekend?
I got a question for you: Did you parent differently this weekend?
Think about it. I bet immediately your thoughts are: No!
And of course, as parents, this is what we do. We go right to two things:
Too much of and not enough of:
So too much screentime not enough family time, too much sugar, not enough healthy food, too much errands, not enough outside time you get it.
Or we go to cataclysmic events:
Like the meltdown in church or the bedtime that took three hours instead of one.
This is called the negativity bias.
So when we look back quickly, over our weekend, we can say to ourselves, “No, that was not a good weekend” or “Okay, some things went great, but that tantrum really was my fault. And I didn't do a good job this weekend. So no, I didn't parent differently.”
If we are not paying attention, our negativity bias takes over and that is how you end up with guilt, shame, and built-in fear of messing up in the future — never getting it right.
The reason I always talked about parenting with gratitude is because it's an intentional way to look back over your weekend and override that negativity bias.
The simple yet effective practice looks like this: I'm gonna look over Saturday, and I'm gonna find five to 10 things that went well, or five to 10 things that I'm grateful for. Maybe they're small moments, maybe they're big moments, but you know what? You forgot. You forgot you're a good mom. And I guarantee you're gonna find five to 10 — I bet you could find 20. And then you're going to do that with Sunday.
And this is the practice of parenting with gratitude. It's looking over our lives with intention and saying, “I am not going to let the negativity bias ruin my week — I'm not going to enter into the mom guilt, shame cycle, because I am going to practice gratitude.”
And the more we do this, the more we look over our yesterday's for the good the more we can experience those situations in real time and begin to notice them the moment they happen. And in those moments, we can feel its positivity even deeper because we are present with the ones we love. And we are not doubting ourselves. We are not feeling lonely, and we are not somewhere inside of our anxiety or depression.
So I want you to ask yourself, did I parent differently yesterday? If you immediately go to a “too much” or “not enough” or that one thing that you just screwed up I want you to take the time to go through and look for the things that did go right because there are lots.
🤍 Stef
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