An ultimate understanding of good parenting
#38 What makes a good parent according to the supreme wisdom of Mr Rogers
As a former psychology student, I love a good normal distribution. For those who aren’t so familiar with statistics, a normal distribution is a graph showing how a variable is normally distributed in a population. The normal distribution doesn’t apply to all variables, but it does apply to many things that we measure. For example, variables such as height, sleep needs, age when learning to crawl, and extraversion/introversion are all approximately normally distributed.
When a variable is approximately normally distributed, it helps us identify the most common values that we would expect to see for that variable. Right in the middle of the curve is the average, which could be the average height of a 7-year-old boy (about 122 cm). From there, about 68% of 7-year-old boys would fall within 1 standard deviation away from that average (with a height between 116 and 127 cm), and 95% of 7-year-old boys fall within 2 standard deviations from that average (with a height between 111 and 132 cm).
This can be very useful information. It can help with broad societal-level decision making (for example, knowing about average height can help teachers know when planning an excursion that most of the children in their class of 7-year-olds would pass minimum height requirements to go down the giant waterslide). It can also help with guiding decisions about an individual (for example, grandparents could make a guess that their 7-year-old grandson would probably be about average height, and so would probably wear size 7 clothes).
The issue arises when we confuse ‘average’ with ‘normal’.
Being at the far ends of the normal distribution for height means that your child isn’t average height. It can indicate that there is something going on that isn’t normal (especially if they were once average height and aren’t anymore), but it’s more likely that they’re completely normal. They might just have very short parents, so being very short would be completely expected for that child. Or they might have very tall parents, so being very tall would be completely expected.
It’s easy to separate average and normal for variables such as height. But it’s much easier to confuse them for emotionally charged variables such as sleep needs, age when learning to crawl, or extraversion/introversion.
I’ve shared this graph before, but it’s worth sharing again. This is not what a normal distribution of infant sleep needs indicates about your baby.
This is what a normal distribution of infant sleep needs does indicate about your baby.
It is so easy to think we must be doing something wrong as parents if our babies seem to wake up more often than all the other babies around us. It can feel like our baby is broken if they only need 20 minute naps when all the other babies sleep for a solid 90 minutes at a time.
We might start to feel guilty for not doing enough tummy time if our baby seems to be the last one to learn to crawl.
We might feel concerned if our child seems to prefer playing alone and has few friends.
But the truth is that not all children are the same. They can’t be standardized. They are unique.
And that can be hard to accept. It can be really hard to accept that your baby will only nap long enough for you to use the bathroom OR have lunch. It can be really hard to accept that your baby just isn’t interested in learning how to scoot around independently yet. It can be really hard to accept that your child isn’t going to be the star of the school performance and will forever feel more comfortable playing the role of ‘tree number 3’ or some other background role.
Yet Mr. Rogers hit the nail on the head when he said:
“If the day ever came when we were able to accept ourselves and our children exactly as we and they are, then, I believe, we would have come very close to an ultimate understanding of what “good” parenting means. It’s part of being human to fall short of that total acceptance – and often far short. But one of the most important gifts a parent can give a child is the gift of that child’s uniqueness.”
We accept our children as they are when we stop worrying about the ways that they’re different from other children. When we quit trying to make them fit the mould. When we trade following generalized advice for flexibly applying what works for our individual child.
We are good parents when we meet our children where they are.
Not all good parents look the same. Good parenting can’t be standardized because we’re not parenting standardized children. We are parenting unique individuals.
We’re going to stuff up. There will be times when we struggle to accept our kids, or ourselves, as we or they are. There will be plenty of times where we will catch ourselves trying to change our children into someone they’re not. And there will be plenty of times where we ignore who we truly are in an attempt to do things the way everyone else seems to be doing things.
But if we can accept our child’s uniqueness, our own uniqueness, and the uniqueness of the individual moment when it comes to making our parenting decisions, we will be making not just “good” parenting decisions, but the best ones.
I'd love to hear your thoughts! Do you think there is a better standard for “good” parenting?
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