What about meeeee? It’s okay, we heard you, parents. You want your very own edition of the most-viewed series, don’t you? Well, this one’s for you! If you’ve been feeling a bit resentful that this entire series up to now has been about your kids BUT you’re also grateful for everything you’ve learned in this series about your kids, you’re in a typical parenting position: completely conflicted! Utterly confused! Torn between two opposing but equally urgent needs, like wanting to be a diligent and present parent and wanting your kids to leave home so you can get just FIVE MINUTES to mindlessly add things to your cart that you will never buy. Is that so much to ask?

Sometimes, yes.

Parenting contains many paradoxes. Feelings coexist in confusing ways. You can love your children but not always like being with them very much. You can delight in every new sound and move they make but also grieve deeply for the days when you were single and free. You can be pushed to the point of breaking by their behaviour and awed by the breathtaking force of your love for them, all in the same day. It’s a wild ride – that’s why you’ll need support. Conveniently, we’ve picked the smartest and shiniest parenting experts around and squished them all onto one cracking website so you always know where to find that support. Here’s just a few of the gems you can find on ParentTV:

The myth of early parenthood as an idyllic time you’ll spend gazing at an adorable, cooing baby is a pretty pervasive one. So, when we actually get there ourselves and find that parenting is not all sunshine and daisies, it can be pretty upsetting. We’ve been LIED to, after all. In this video, Dr Lapointe says a sentence that will probably stay with you for some time: ‘We are all all the ages we have ever been.’ What this means is that becoming a parent can bring up a whole lot of stuff from when you were a child, because you are still that child. Trippy but true, and super helpful to explore! 

Sometimes, kids are irrational and unreasonable. Surprise! So, sometimes you can’t meet them and their behavior with logic and reason. There’s just no point. At those times, you might need to tap into something a bit deeper to help you work out what to do, specifically, your imagination and intuition. Dr Charlotte Reznick has a lot of clever techniques for helping kids use their imagination to become calm and centred, and in this video, she encourages parents to use them, too. She even suggests retreating to the loo for some breathing exercises if need be. Smart and sneaky.

How do our children know exactly where our buttons are? Why must they push them so hard? In this video, David Loyst teaches us how to think about our triggers in terms of consciousness, within an attachment parenting framework. His first suggestion for what to do when you’re triggered? Nothing. Because, when you act from that place, you are probably going to act in a way you’ll regret later. Most parents nod their heads really hard when they watch this video. David also gets bonus points for quoting Brene Brown.

Oh, yes. Presenting a united front, and all that. Wouldn’t that be nice? Unfortunately, it can be very hard to get your parenting partner to see the superior nature of your approach. In fact, the topic of parenting on the same page as your partner is one that comes up so often, we wrote a whole blog on it recently, with a follow up on doing it when you’re separated or divorced. As parents, finding some alignment between our way of doing things and our partner or co-parent’s way is an ongoing challenge, but Dr Coulson has some excellent tips for making it a little easier.

‘It’s not possible to do everything to the fullest when you’re a parent. There just aren’t enough hours in the day,’ says Dr Kaylene Henderson. It’s one of those things that you don’t really understand until you are knee-deep in it and your life is virtually eclipsed by the needs of someone else. It’s also hard to envisage how time-consuming meeting all those needs is until you’re doing it and you run out of minutes, every single day. Chasing that elusive ‘balance’ can feel like a hopeless cause, but it might just be a matter of reframing it, according to Dr Henderson…

Have you ever completely lost your cool with your kids? Flipped your lid? If you haven’t, you’re fibbing. In her gentle but pointed way, Maggie reminds us to try and keep a little bit of perspective in our parenting, and offers some sage advice for what to do when your perspective left the building some time ago. Whether it’s your child melting down or you melting down in response to them, Maggie has a suggestion for the words you can say to yourself to stop things escalating further. We’re going to memorise her sentence like it’s a times-table!

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If you missed any of the other blogs in the series – check them out below:

Babies and their development

Toddlers and their development

4-8 year olds and their development

9-12 year olds and their development

Teenagers and their development