How to Start Parenting with Gratitude™
So you are wondering if this gratitude thing will work for you.
Parents have been told to “be grateful” enough times by now. So you must be asking yourself — why do you have a blog that focuses on this?
Well, my goal is not to tell you to be grateful but to teach you how to look within and discover your own motivations. The ones that drove you to find my website, and the ones that drive your desire for more to life than festering in Mom Guilt. Maybe you are ready to stop skipping over the good on your way to the bad.
Those motivations are the ingredients of an intention. However, an intention is not quite enough to change our behavior so that we can reach our goals. We need to adjust our mindset, notice our habits, find new ways of doing things then repeat it all.
According to Dr. Laurie Santos, cognitive scientist and host of The Happiness Lab, the phrase “Knowing is half the battle” is actually dead wrong. We can’t just learn that gratitude will make us happier or that self-reflection is the simplest form of self-care. We must do it repeatedly, change our conditioned ways, and have commitment devices to support us.
When you need a new parenting plan
I have been at this for a while. I am not only a former professional nanny with two decades of experience but also a mom and a gratitude nerd. Once I determined that my own intention was to become a happier human (after saying F-U to trying to be perfect), I began to study the aspects of positive psychology that supported my self-inquiry. And along the way, I developed a method that I called Parenting with Gratitude™ and with it an equation that helps any mom try it on for size.
This method acts as a commitment device. Dr. Santos referenced it. Behavioral scientists define a commitment device is a strategy that engages self-regulation and accountability. It’s a formula to make our goals achievable and customized just for us.
The Parenting with Gratitude™ Equation
Ok, so here’s my Parenting with Gratitude™ equation:
INTENTION + ATTENTION + ACTION + REPETITION = RESULTS YOU CAN SEE AND FEEL.
Now you can watch the short video about the steps or read more about each one below. If you want to take it slow, sign up for my 10-week email series. It’s free and goes through each level of the method with an action you can try.
The Importance of Intention
How motivated are you to change? Well, there's intrinsic motivation which is determined by your own desires and beliefs, and extrinsic motivation, inspired by external expectations, rewards, and praise.
It’s important to point this out, being in my position. I am the one who may be extrinsically motivating you, which is not my intention but also a consequence of my position. I’m the one who wants to share a new way to tackle an old problem – that parenting feels like a neverending assault on your psyche.
Defining your intention is important to finding your intrinsic motivation. You can ask yourself: What do I want out of motherhood? Or What do I want out of the next 10 years? Another awesome writer on gratitude, Alex Elle, says to ask yourself this question: I am healing because I need/want/… or I am healing because I love/I choose…. etc.
Five years ago, when I looked, my intention was to be a perfect mom. That wasn’t working out so well, so at first, I lessened that to becoming a “better” parent — and then a few years later, my intention became “I intend to be a happy human and to be kind,” and five years later that one is still stuck.
If you aren’t sure, let’s start by saying that you are not a “Bad Mom” just because you make mistakes. We are GoodAF Moms who can learn from our mistakes. And so you’re intention could be to be a mom who makes mistakes - to be an imperfect parent. Find an intention statement that works for you, and allow it to grow and shape over time.
Directing Attention inward
OK, I could spend an entire article talking about paying attention to ourselves, and I have. Here I will say that this piece of the equation is vital for one big reason — if you aren’t paying attention to yourself and how you think, feel, and behave, you will miss out on your most valuable asset: your inner goodness. You are worthy of this path — you are a GoodAF Mom. I can tell you that, but it won’t matter until you believe it yourself.
Our attention piece is a way to include noticing or mindfulness in our journey. This is not a fixing quest but a deliberate turning of our attention. From the demands and world literally crying out for us to our inner lives. Our inner world of goodness already exists. You are already a GoodAF mom. No, you are. I know you are because you are concerned and willing to fix yourself to improve this whole thing, motherhood. Except you don’t need fixing, you need self-love and attention, Mama, and you’ve got you.
Taking Action with Gratitude
The practice of gratitude can be as simple as making a list each day, but if that worked for everybody, we would all be making lists. I know from talking to hundreds of moms that each chapter of motherhood is different. We have moments to catch our breath or moments where we can’t. And then there are our learning styles, everyone learns differently, and gratefulness is a learned skill. So the action part of the Parenting with Gratitude™ equation may shift and change over time depending on time constraints and your interest level.
The practices I suggest on this blog are located in the Practice Hub, and they include a mixture of solo practices and some that you can even try with your kids. I never suggest practices you can’t add to your life or feel like a major time suck. You can read about them in blog form, listen to the practices in an audio series, or sign up for one practice to be sent to your email weekly.
The practice of gratitude compounds over time. The more you look, the more things you will find to be grateful for. And so taking daily action is key to this new plan - more on that below.
“Gratitude is fertilizer for the mind, spreading connections and improving its function in nearly every realm of experience.”
― Robert Emmons Ph.D, The Little Book of Gratitude
The Power of ReptiTion
We are asking our brains to create new neural pathways (thankfully reinforced by the release of dopamine and serotonin that gratitude induces). However, still, it takes a lot of work to train a developed brain, and it takes finding an action you can easily repeat. Because without repetition, you get benefits, but they don’t last.
It’s like working out: If you want results, you need to stick with it. You aren’t going to improve your heart health with a week of gym workouts - it’s more likely that an overall lifestyle change of consistent exercise, healthy eating, more water, and fewer determinantal choices will make the difference. It’s the same with gratitude.
I’ll be honest, researchers are mixed on whether you should practice gratitude daily or weekly. The main reason I stand by a daily practice as the most impactful way to practice gratitude for parents is that the real secret is…I know you're not going to do it every day. Catastrophes happen every other day if you have kids — and the gratitude practice will be the first thing to go. I know it because it happens to me too. However, I practice five days a week these days, and that feels like enough. You will find what works for you.
“We can accumulate a greater sense of self-worth by appreciating our accomplishments and the results we achieve in the world, and through the repeated internalization of recognizing our own accomplishments, and feeling successful in inappropriate ways as a result, as well as internalizing the appreciation of others, acknowledgments of others, the friendliness of others, the lovingness of others, all of which affirm our worth as a being.” - Rick Hanson on Being Well.
Results you can see and feel
Think of the first time you were grateful for your parenting life or motherhood. How did it make you feel? How did this feeling show up in your body?
Write it down. These are results that you can see and feel, and they are powerful motivators. And when you are just starting out, it’s nice to know what you are working towards. These results can be the positive reinforcement to keep going, and they may even be what allows you to truly feel all the qualities of being a GoodAF Mom.
Of course, along the way, other things begin to happen. Over the past five years, I have become a more positive-minded person. I have the patience that I have always craved, I notice before I get mad, and I have stopped trying to fix the people in my life and accept them as they come - myself included.
This is the STATE of GRACE we are striving for. Our whole being lives there, body, soul, mind, reactions, Inner Critic - everybody comes for the ride. And it’s imperfect. I don’t always feel these things, but I sure do notice the results more often than not. And feeling like a GoodAF Mom? Well, that is a way of life now. Because good enough in my book is GoodAF.
Finally, how can you stay accountable to your Parenting with Gratitude™ Equation?
I want to stress that science supports belonging to a community that can assist in maintaining motivation and your commitment device – to help you build that sense of inner resolve. And so I want to invite you to RSVP for the Gratitude Circle - we meet the last Wednesday of every month online, and it's totally free. And we talk about this stuff: why we can’t get over the hump and practice. We take time to reflect on our past month's gratitude and savor the associated feelings — and the Circle acts as a source of social support, and an accountability partner.
I hope to see you there. And don’t ever forget — you are a GoodAF mom - Stef
