How Does Gratitude Improve Parenting?
Recently I decided to ask the ChatGPT AI machine this question: How does Gratitude Improve Parenting? I know from personal experience that gratitude has improved my relationship with my kids, self, and partner — but I wanted to hear what the research AI had to say. Here’s its answer:
From my own personal research, I find this to be spot on. Gratitude changes our perspective by opening our worldview to allow more CHOICES to be discovered. When there are more choices we dont feel trapped, burned out, or overwhelmed, even within the highly stressful experience of parenting differently than we were raised.
When you choose to parent differently you are stepping into foreign territory, shedding the learned habits from youth, and the model your parents provided, for something that you are a beginner at. That was choosing to let go of parenting perfectly as the books told me - to let go of worrying about HOW I was parenting and begin to look inside myself instead.
What did I find?
I found a tight, scared, and exhausted shell of who I used to be before I was graced with my adorable kids. This was scary, and I knew I needed help. And so, I put down the parenting books and picked up a few good self-help ones instead.
Now after years of investing in myself through therapy, devoted mindfulness practice, and exercise, I understand that the role of having choices is invaluable to parenting. When we choose to be grateful amidst hardship, we are making a radical decision to choose our mental health over what society says is more “important” - and when we do that, we can discover that all those moments that we thought made us a Bad Mom are actually not that many. When we sit down to list our gratitude we discover that we have overlooked a million and one things that make us Good AF moms instead.
Gratitude can also positively impact cycle-breaking or just trying to parent a little bit differently. And as a disclaimer, I have no intention of outsourcing my blog posts or podcast to the machines; after all, if you listened to Episode 31 (Intention Action Gap), you’ll know that no AI would ever understand what it’s like to cook your child’s betta fish overnight… I hope you have a good week - and don’t forget you are already a GoodAF Mom. - Stef
