Being a mother always seem to bring out our biggest insecurities. When I first became a Mom I was always wondering, was I doing it right?
Am I nursing enough times during the day?
Is this the way you are supposed to give a bath?
As they got older it got even harder.
“Should I let him wear his favorite sweater everyday?”
“Is it okay that he will only eat macaroni?”
In the back of my mind there was always that niggling doubt and that voice that said, “You are doing it all wrong!”
We can apply this principle to our parenting. The mother who understands her unique strengths will be more comfortable and confident in her parenting abilities. She will be more productive and will be able to better interact with her children and parent more effectively. She and her children will exhibit greater happiness and well-being.
Haim Ginott, an eminent psychologist in the 1960’s and 70’s addressed this issue of strengths in his parenting classes. One mother was feeling badly because her child had asked her to volunteer to be the class mother and she told him no. She complained to Dr. Ginott:, “What’s the matter with me?” Why can’t I be like other mothers?”
He said firmly, “A question like that only confuses. It presupposes that we should feel like other people. But we don’t. We’re not other people. We’re ourselves. You are you. We come back to the same thing again. We can only feel what we feel. And we really feel differently -each one of us does- not only about being class mother, but about everything. One mother loves to bake with her children, and another can’t stand having them underfoot in the kitchen: one loves gathering the little ones around to read aloud, another shudders at the thought. We each have our strengths and our limitations.”
Here are 5 questions we can ask ourselves. These questions can help us find our strengths, our uniqueness our individual style, so that we can parent happily, productively and effectively.
1. What aspect of mothering do you find energizing? What comes easy to you?
We often spend a lot of time focusing on our weaknesses. Our dress is wrong for the party, our house is not clean enough, our children aren’t polite enough and the neighbor does it all better than we ever could. We need to stop looking at what we think we are doing wrong and concentrate our efforts in searching for our areas of competence. Those are our strengths. It is the part of mothering and nurturing that comes most naturally to us. It is the stuff that makes us feel fulfilled and whole.
Think about what you love to do with your kids. Is bath time or feeding your children their favorite foods one of your preferred activities? Do you enjoy cuddling time and curling up to read a good book? Do you love to take your kids out and about town to a new exhibit at a museum or do you like making popcorn and watching old movies with everyone on the couch? Somehow we always push ourselves to do the hard stuff, things we don’t like to do. Ironically, our strengths lie in the activities that we do effortlessly.