Parenting for Humans: How to Parent the Child You Have, As the Person You Are

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Thank you! Parenting For Humans takes you through a similarprocess to the one I take clients through in therapy. Rather than offering any parenting advice, it supports you through understanding yourselfand all of the different influences on you now, not just as a parent but as a whole person. When we understand this, we can make choices about whether we actuallywant these things to influence us and how.This can also create space for us to see how these influences can colour the way we see our children and help us to see them for thewhole people they are, too. Then we can meet each other in this complex, lifelong relationship we’re in - with compassion.I’ve been told it is like ‘therapy in a book’ so I hope people can use it to support them in the often challenging task of parenting. I wasn't the only one feeling that way. My phone buzzed as messages flooded the school WhatsApp channel, with parents wondering how they were going to fit the demands of their day jobs around fronted adverbials and long division.

You are not alone if you feel like no matter how hard you are trying, you just can't quite get it 'right'. The fact is, parenting is hard and once you know this and why, you can forgive yourself for finding it a struggle, and start to look for the things that make parenting a joy. Join Emma’s session to shortcut you to happier, less stressful parenting. Our aim is to help our audience find a wide range of books and resources to help with their mental health and wellbeing, or share experiences that are useful to others

With warmth and compassion, Svanberg acts as a guide for existing or parents-to-be, promoting self-reflection and self-awareness as the best tools you can hope to have as a parent. The first sections of the book are dedicated to helping you look into your own story, events from your childhood and adulthood, sociocultural forces, your present situation, to help you understand how you might be (often unconsciously) playing into certain scripts and repeating certain stories, even those you don't want to. Maybe you swore you never would!

Expecting humans to parent like chimpanzees is a bit like isolating an ant from her colony: we aren’t necessarily cut out for it – and often it doesn’t go well. Admitting that we need others is not a sign of failure, but is the very thing that makes us human.

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But the fact is, parenting is hard and once we know this and why, we can forgive ourselves for finding it a struggle, and start to look for the things that make parenting a joy. Parenting for Humans is a book first and foremost for parents. It’s a hard time for new parents at the moment, with lots of difficult news about maternity services and many parents speak about there being less support around than they would like. If you are anxious about pregnancy, birth or the postnatal period do speak to your midwife. But you can also draw from the experiences of other parents, both those who are more experienced as well as those going through it at the same time. Joining a group of parents who are expecting a baby at the same time as you can create a village that you might turn tofor many years. And speaking to friends and family about their experiences can be useful- you can caveat this by asking people to tell you the things they wish they had knownor the things they found really helpful. Also think about who you would like with you when you are giving birth- often we chooseour partner if we have onebut they are usually alsobrand new to this! It canbe so supportive to have someone alongsideyouwho has experienced birth themselves and evidence shows that having continuous support throughout labour can have a number of benefits (especially someone in a doula role).

Did you think about what being a parent meant? What it is to begin a lifelong relationship with another human? Perhaps you had some stories in your mind about what parents are, and what they do. Stories you’ve been told since you were a baby yourself. Stories that have, perhaps, set up certain expectations for you about what ‘good’ parents do, how they behave, even how they feel inside and what they think about. I could gush a lot but just take my final words, that if you are a human and a parent or a human who is considering becoming a parent then this book is for you. From an evolutionary perspective, it is not surprising that many of us felt so overwhelmed. Despite the common idea that modern family life consists of small, independent units, the reality is that we would often benefit from help from others to raise our offspring. For much of human history, extended families provided that help. In contemporary industrialised societies, where smaller family units are common, teachers, babysitters and other caregivers have allowed us to replicate that ancient support network. We are clearly different. For most of our time on Earth, humans have lived in extended family units, where mothers would have received assistance from many other family members. In many contemporary human societies, this is still the case. Human fathers are often involved in raising offspring, although the extent of paternal investment varies quite a bit across societies. Infants also receive input from a variety of other relatives, including older siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins and, of course, grandparents. Even small children can play a vital role in helping to sustain and protect younger ones. In such a setting, the burden of looking after children very rarely falls onto one person alone.At Welldoing we are empathetic to the enormously challenging shift that becoming a parent represents. Our content about motherhood is always popular, showing a real need for trustworthy, helpful content in this area. We also know that people reach out to us for help with post-natal depression, as well as for support with all the ups and downs of the fertility journey, which for a saddening number of people may include loss through miscarriage or other difficulties with becoming pregnant. We hear a lot about how it takes a village to raise a child. But this conflicts with how isolated we often are as parents. The importance of having other parents around you as you parent is not only for advice or suggestion, but also for solidarity and support. What more experienced parents will often tell you is that you’ll figure it out over time, that phases pass and children change, and that it’s a marathon not a sprint. This can help us settle in for the long haul rather than focus on the urgency of problems as they arise. Take a Look at Our Summary of November Highlights, Whether You're Looking for the Latest Releases or Gift Inspiration

How about your child? If you haven’t met your child yet, how do you imagine they will be? Where have those ideas come from? Getting to know ourselves can be hard work, particularly when we are sleep deprived and life is demanding already. But when we reflect on who we are, the values we hold and why, we come to our parenting with more honesty. We can make conscious choices about our family life. It sometimes feels like parenting advice is being offered every time we log on to our socials or read magazines, not to mention by well meaning friends and family! How do we know what advice we should be taking? Often, though, because we’re human and changing stories is a hard thing to do, we hold tighter to them and wonder what we need to do differently to make that story a reality. We love that you were inspired to follow your career path by your dad, could you tell us a little about his influenceon your career?

So much of my work is about understanding the influence of your childhood on your adult life, and of courseboth my parents influenced my career. My dad wasa psychologist who worked in infant mental health. I was really privileged to meet and learn fromhim andhis colleagues in my teenage years. Although at the time I had no intention of becoming a psychologist myself, this sparked a lifelong interest in the importance of parents and how influential our early years are. My mum has been a huge influence too- she was a social worker and then foundeda charity in Newcastle. So, we were raised with pretty strong values of social justice and public service.These two strands from my parents have woven through my own career. To meet our child or children where they are, and as who they are, we need to let go of ideas of success and failure. To let go of the idea that parenting is an achievement. A parent is the person we are – all of us, our whole selves. The bits we like, the bits we wish weren’t there and the many in-betweeny bits. And we parent our child, as the person they are (and, crucially, not the person we wish they were). There are many parenting experts out there – speaking from professional or personal experience (or both). Before accepting their advice, ask yourself why you are giving them authority over your decision making. Experts (me included!) don’t know you or your family – what they can offer is generalised information which you can apply in a way that fits your individual circumstances. Emma gently guides you through each chapter, holding your hand as your embark on a journey of self discovery and reflection (which feels more curious than uncomfortable) because the one thing that can and really does get lost in the swamp of life and parenting is ‘you’. But at some point in our parenting, we will find ourselves face to face with these stories – and the assumptions they contain. We might challenge them, and create new stories.