Top 5 Tips to Being a Good Mother:

I recently contributed to an article on UpJourney entitled CLICK HERE “How to Be a Good Mother (90+ Effective Ways From Experts)” Here are my 5 Top Tips

Top 5 Tips to Being a Good Mother:

1. Invest Time in Personal Growth - Parenting can be an opportunity for personal growth. Luckily for you, as your child grows, you grow, too, which means that when your child is a baby, you are a “baby” parent. You can learn what you need to know as you go along. You don’t need to be an expert. You also don’t have to repeat any patterns that you are carrying from childhood. It’s natural as your child grows to remember that age along with any patterns, hurts or traumas that may have occurred during this time. Take this as an opportunity to change any family patterns. Be intentional and find support as you do this. It is natural to struggle with parenting when you are trying to undo patterns because it’s easy to default into what you experienced. This is not your fault. AND. It can be changed. You may find that as you change your patterns, you heal from those patterns. What a GIFT!
2. Fail Forward - Give yourself time and grace to learn how to be a parent. Even folks who studied child development find themselves stymied when they are faced with real, live human children. Every attempt at learning how to do this thing called parenting will get you closer to being the parent you want to be. Celebrate each attempt no matter the outcome because it means you are working toward your vision. Be proud of the fact that you have a vision and you know where you’re going!

• Remember That Social Media is FAKE! - Instagram and Facebook parenting influencers curate and create content that makes parenting look easy and breezy. It is neither and that’s okay. Get support not hacks from trusted sources.

• Be an Ally NOT a Friend  - Your child is NOT your friend. Children need structure and support. They need to grow up in a home that feels safe. Safety comes with strong foundations and strong boundaries. I think of the parenting journey as coming in 2 phases - 

• The Active Phase - from birth until 18-ish. This is when you are helping your child learn how to become high functioning adults which includes learning values, routines and skills. 

• The Counsel Phase - from 18 on. During this phase, your child craves your closeness and counsel but does not need you for day-to-day support. In order to get to this phase, there’s a lot to set up in the Active Phase.

• Create Your Family with Your Family - Remember where you got your model of parenting and family? Well, now it’s your time to model how to define and create a family. Be intentional, talk about everything and get input from your child in a way that’s appropriate for their age. Children are constantly absorbing everything around them. They hear how you talk to yourself, how you talk to other adults, how you talk to other children and how you talk to them. Start by talking about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. This can be as simple as shopping for groceries to picking out clothing. You can share with them how you're feeling and what you’re going to do to solve any problems that you face.