It's Time To Let Go of Parenting Perfection: Why Good Enough is What Kids Really Need

Letting Go of Perfection: Embracing Good Enough Parenting

In this episode of the Globally Thriving Families Podcast, host Clare O'Byrne addresses the pressure parents, especially those raising children internationally, feel to create perfect experiences for their kids. She unpacks the sources of this pressure, including guilt, fear of missing out, and social media comparisons. Clare introduces the concept of 'good enough parenting,' backed by scientific research from experts like Dr. Dan Siegel and Dr. Tina Payne Bryson. She explains the four S's (safe, seen, soothed, secure) that children need to develop a secure attachment, emphasizing that perfection is not required. Clare encourages parents to reflect on their own experiences and to focus on showing up for their children in everyday moments.

00:00 Introduction to Globally Thriving Families
01:11 The Pressure of Perfect Parenting
03:48 Understanding the Source of Parenting Pressure
06:51 The Science of 'Good Enough' Parenting
11:50 Practical Tips for Showing Up
14:01 Reflecting on Your Parenting Journey
15:27 Conclusion and Next Steps

Resources mentioned in this episode:

The Power of Showing Up: how parental pressure shapes who our kids become and how their brains gets wired. Dr. Dan Siegel and Dr. Tina Payne Bryson

Connect with Clare: clare@globallythriving.com

Get the Free 5 Minute Parenting Reset for Busy Globally Mobile Families: Website: https://www.globallythriving.com

Connect with Clare on Instagram: http://instagram.com/globally_thriving

Book a free 20 minute call with Clare: https://tidycal.com/globallythriving/20-minute-meeting

Transcript

Speaker: 0:05

Are you a parent or caregiver raising your child internationally? Are you curious about how to nurture your child's development? But find all the parenting information out there confusing? If so, you are in the right place. Welcome to the Globally Thriving Families Podcast. I'm your host, Clare O'Byrne, a parent coach and occupational therapist with a passion for supporting children and their families for more than 25 years. Whether it's understanding how to build resilience to practical tips for language development, screen time challenges, and staying calm amongst the chaos, Globally Thriving Families is here to help. Join me as we explore the topics that give you the insights and guidance you need to support your children to thrive. No matter where your family's adventures take you. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Globally Thriving Families. So today we're gonna talk about something many of us feel, but perhaps don't talk about that much. It's the pressure to create perfect experiences for our kids. Do you ever feel like you should be doing more for your family? Making things magical. Making things perfect, doing amazing things? As parents and especially as globally mobile families, I think it's easy to feel the weight of creating extraordinary experiences for our kids, whether it's how we spend the school holidays or taking trips, or even just our everyday weekend plans. But is this what our kids really need? So keep listening because we are going to talk about why our kids don't actually need perfect experiences, and we'll unpack where this pressure comes from, what the science says about it, and why everyday ordinary moments might matter even more. Now, as I've said before, I don't have all the answers. Remember, I am living this alongside you, but I can gently guide you to awareness and insight so that you can reflect on your own situation and consider small actions to create change if you want it. So how does this pressure show up in our life as a globally mobile parent? Well, firstly, the way we spend our summer holidays or the school holidays., We might be thinking, are we having enough adventures? Are we giving our kids something that they don't get during term time? Are we optimizing their development or are we helping them maintain their academic skills year round? And then in term time, we might be thinking, did we research the schools enough before we chose one? Did we pick the right school? Should we be striving to find a better school? And in general in our life overseas, we could be asking ourselves, are we making the most of the time while we are here? Are we having enough fun? Are we having enough enriching experiences for our kids? Are we immersing ourselves enough in the life here? Are we doing enough to maintain relationships with family who live far away? Have we done our kids a disservice by moving away or moving frequently? And then parenting in general. Are we supporting our kids to be their best selves? Are we teaching them enough about life? Are we helping them build core memories of their childhood? Are they growing up to be resilient, adaptable, and successful? Am I spending enough time with my kids? Are we connecting enough with our kids? Am I spending too much time with them? Are they becoming independent? Basically? Are we doing enough? Are we being enough? I feel exhausted and a little bit stressed just saying these out loud, but let's think about where this pressure actually comes from? Is some of it to do with guilt?. You know, we chose this life. We chose to move away, we chose to travel. Maybe we chose to stay longer than we first thought we ever would. You know, we know that there are significant benefits for our kids to having this kind of globally mobile. Life, but we also know that there are some sacrifices and, and some losses along the way. And so maybe that leads us to micromanaging some of those experiences such as the summer holidays or the decisions about schools, or even just how we spend our weekends to try and compensate for some of those potential losses or to make sure that, you know, what we chose for them doesn't put them at a disadvantage or expose some of those losses. And then there's good old fomo, the fear of missing out. You know, if we don't do X right now, we might not have a chance to again, and I know I've definitely said that about travel to certain places. Once we leave, we won't come back again, blah, blah, blah. You know, almost like there's a scarcity mindset about our time in one place. You never know how long we'll be here. It could all change very quickly. And then there's comparison. It's easier than ever to compare our lives to others with social media. Many, if not most of us are scrolling through Instagram and we see what everyone's up to. Have you ever seen somebody's summer adventures and thought that you needed to do something exciting too, or that your life was a bit too boring? Or ask yourself at that point, are you doing enough? Be honest. Even though we logically know that social media is curated, you know, a highlight reel, there might be part of us that makes these comparisons. I mean, it's natural. And then there's our own nervous system too. If we wanna get a little bit deeper into this, it might be part of a greater need for perfection in general in our life. And perfectionism comes from anxiety. Our nervous system is trying to protect us by over controlling and micromanaging aspects of our life or our kids' life might feel safer because we are taking action to reduce the chance of failure or upset or judgment or disappointment. This might tie in with something you also experienced as a child yourself. Did you feel like achievement somehow equaled how valuable you were? Many of us attach achievement to our worth. And if you gain insight into that, then you might spend years trying to unravel from it .Our children's life, their skills, their success. What does that say about us as a parent, as an individual, and this over curating and micromanaging experiences to try to be perfect? Would that mean that I'm doing well as a parent? Does that mean I'm good enough? Yeah, it's deep, isn't it? But guess what? The good news is, science tells us that we actually don't need to provide perfect experiences at all or try to be perfect parents. We don't even have to get things right most of the time, so we can actually chill out a bit with the guilt and anxiety. In the book, the Power of Showing Up by Dr. Dan Siegel and Dr. Tina Payne, Bryson, I'll put that in the show notes. They talk about rather than aiming for perfection, which isn't really attainable, we actually just need to show up for our kids. But that sounds a bit vague, doesn't it? What does showing up actually even mean and how do we do that? So they described the four S's that are needed to do this. So number one, the first s is that the child feels safe. So at its most basic and fundamental, it's about keeping a child physically safe from harm. So protected from harm, but also safe emotionally. Are they safe to express themselves without fear of being shamed or dismissed? And then the second s is, does the child feel seen? So do they know that you care about them and that you'll pay attention to them? Are you listening to them? Are you noticing and are interested in their world? And what lights them up or what's important to them and noticing what they don't like? And then the third s is, do they feel soothed? Do they know that you'll be there for them for the hard times when they're sad, when they're overwhelmed or they're hurting? Can they go to you for comfort? This is a biggie because co-regulation is what helps our kids develop resilience. It's not about being left to tough something out by themselves. It's about being supported through tough situations and challenges. And then over time, when those three S's are provided, the fourth S will happen, which is that they will have a secure attachment, which they describe as the goal of parenting. A secure attachment gives our kids the best chance to healthy and optimal development. They're more likely to grow up with confidence and flexibility and be able to manage challenges and relationships in the future if they have a secure attachment. And so if we step back from that, it's not that our kids actually need the Pinterest worthy life or the perfectly curated experiences, even if those are great experiences, but what they do need is to consistently feel safe, seen, soothed, and secure. As I briefly mentioned, we don't even have to get this right all the time. So in the sixties, Dr. Winicott, a British pediatrician, coined the term 'a good enough parent'. So a good enough parent is one that meets enough of the child's needs, enough of the time for the child to still feel safe and loved, and that actually when a parent. takes a bit of a wrong turn with it and mis attunes to their child, but then repairs, this is actually helping their development because it's teaching them about flexibility and navigating these nuances of relationships. And then this work was further supported by Ed Tronick, a developmental psychologist. So his research on parent-child relationships found that parents were only attuned or in sync with their children about 20-30% of the time, but they still showed that they had this secure attachment pattern,. And in the rest of the time, the 70% there were missed cues between the child and the parent, or the parent wasn't responding the way that the child needed. So what this means for us, the important aspect to this is when we are not attuned, we can reflect, we can revisit, we can repair, we can tune in again, and then we can still foster that secure attachment. Thank goodness. So if the science is telling us that we don't need perfection and that our kids just need us to show up and feel safe, seen and soothed in order to be securely attached, then we can let go a bit of the pressure as globally mobile parents to create these magical, perfect experiences. Yes, of course, the travel and the summer adventures and going to a great school. I mean, of course those can be really beneficial and awesome experiences and can teach our kids a lot and contribute to their core memories of their childhood for sure. But what's wiring their brains consistently is those other moments where nothing particularly special has to happen. But how we respond to them and how we connect with them and how we repair with them is actually what matters most. It could be the sort of simple, consistent thing of using a car seat every day to keep them safe or holding their hand when they cross the road when they're little. It could be noticing their mood changes when they're frustrated doing their homework and mentioning it. It could be sitting quietly with them and letting them cry without you rushing to fix something when they're upset and importantly, repairing after we mess up. Maybe it's apologizing after we've yelled at them. These are those micro moments that actually build the secure attachment and what makes us a good enough parent. You know, we took the kids away for a weekend in Dubai recently, just before school started, and one night we went to this board game cafe that we saw across the road from where we were staying. And it looked super fun and something different for us all getting away from the screens and just having time together, chatting and. At one point, I actually just thought, oh my God, I wanna go home. There was just a bit of arguing and grumpiness, and I actually started to feel grumpy because I was trying to kind of micromanage the fun so that it was a perfect experience and luckily, I. Did notice this about myself, and I had to kind of think about, okay, I, I need to turn this around a little bit. Maybe be more playful. I've got to try and cut the tension. I need to not take the bait and match the grumpiness because that's not helping all of those kind of things. And it actually did turn out to be fun. We left in a good mood, but it definitely wasn't perfect. It was pretty messy. And like I said, at one point I honestly wanted to go home, so it didn't go the way I envisaged, but the repair and the connection was actually the most important part of the experience. So there's so much more to this topic of attachment and early childhood experience, and I highly recommend reading the book The Power of Showing Up. If you wanna understand a bit more about it. It really weaves in the science in a digestible way, and it gives lots of practical examples too. Now, before we finish, here's what I want you to do. I want you to think about where in your parenting do you feel the pressure to create something magical or perfect, and what would it look like if you just showed up instead, what if it was just good enough? How would that change things for you? Also, think about a situation or a moment that you had recently with your child. It could be something good or maybe something that went a bit wrong and in that moment. Did your child feel safe, seen, soothed, and secure? I mean, maybe not all four of those things will be possible in that particular example, but you know what I mean? This isn't about pointing out where you're going wrong as such, but it's actually just practicing reflecting on what we're doing and what's happening, because we can't really gain new insights without reflecting, maybe it will help you to notice where you have been a good enough parent when you didn't think you were, or maybe it will help you. Notice small shifts that might improve your connection. Next time you find yourself wondering if you are doing enough, remember, if you are trying to show up and if you're getting it right about 30% of the time, then you're doing great. We're all good enough parents. Even just listening to this episode proves that because you've taken the time to show up for your child in the way they need. So thank you so much for listening and see you next time. If anything in this episode sparked something for you, I'd love to hear about it. You can find me on Instagram at globally_thriving, or you can reach out to me on my website. Globally thriving.com Also, if you are curious about parent coaching and if it might be right for you, you can book free 20 minute call via the link in the show notes, and we can have a no pressure conversation just to find out more about it. See you next time.