Have you ever felt like you were losing control of your household?  Are your kids ruling the roost?  I know that there are many parents out there who are muttering "yes" under their breath!  As a home visitor, I know that there are many parents who

Let me share a little of my experience.  After the initial shock of being responsible for this little human being that we brought home from the hospital, I found the first two years to be relatively easy.  But when the testing and manipulative behaviors started after my son turned two, I was at a loss!  Here I was, a college educated woman, a social worker with training in child development and family dynamics no less, and this little toddler is running my home!   I spent my days helping families in crisis learn how to manage their children's behavior, but I had no idea how to handle my own!  My feelings of guilt about being a working mother and leaving my child in daycare were muddling my ability to do what I knew needed to be done.  It really was an exasperating period.  I knew, however, that I had to get control of my home and my child.  The writing was on the wall:  fail at this and you will never be able to control you child.  That was not acceptable.

I decided to change what I was doing.  I talked with my friends who had already been through this with their children.  It was such a relief to find out that they had the same experiences at some point in time as a parent.  That in and of itself was a huge boost to my parenting self-esteem.  If these women who I respected as wonderful, loving parents were able to do it, then so could I.  I started reading books on particular child rearing issues.  I started to raise my parenting self-esteem.

I find that parents often struggle with what I call their "parenting self-esteem."  We may be confident and assertive at work, but have difficulty translating these characteristics into success at home.  The cause of low parenting self-esteem varies from parent to parent, but the two most common causes that I have seen over the years as a home visitor are parental guilt and lack of knowledge.  Guilt over being away at work all day can lead to parents being permissive or overindulgent.  When I speak of lack of knowledge, I am not just talking about the "what to do when your child..." kind of stuff.  I am also talking about understanding their child's development, e.g., what is normal for each developmental age; why do they do these behaviors; etc.  Other causes of low parenting self-esteem can be lack of good parenting role models as children, disparity between parents on discipline techniques and the list can go on and on.

The good news is low parenting self-esteem can be fixed!  There are a number of options, e.g., reading books on discipline and child development, finding a program in your area that provides in home parent education, taking parenting classes, etc. 

Let's compare becoming a parent to starting a new job for a moment.  When you start a new job, you know very little about the organization and how it operates, right?  So what do you do?  You talk to co-workers, ask questions, ask for help, read the organizational policies or books related to your field, attend in-services or workshops on pertinent topics, etc.  So why don't we do this when it comes to parenting?  I know, I know, time is at a premium any more, but don't we owe it to our kids to give them the same level of commitment that we do to say our work?  Just a thought :)

So, what is your parenting self-esteem like?  What kinds of things have you done in the past to feel more confident as a parent? Share your stories with the rest of us!