LoveParenting: Stop reading parenting books? - Busting the 3 Myths of Parenting Education

0:00 [Music] the parenting junkie this video is brought to you by my empathic limits course this is a three week online course that will take you through exactly why punitive and permissive parenting hurts kids and what exactly peaceful parenting is by the end of it you'll know which limits to set and how does that limit including scripts and actions to take so you can say yes and no without damaging your relationship with your child as Lauren said it's the

0:29 easiest most direct clearest way of understanding the peaceful parenting philosophy hey guys welcome back to the parenting junkie the place to go to love parenting and for parenting from love today I want to talk about the critical importance of parental education and if this seems self-serving because I sell courses and memberships about parenting then you're right it is but that's because I truly believe in this mission I really believe that parents must invest in further education about

1:00 parenting and it should be a continuous investment throughout their lives when you've reached the place where you feel amazing in your relationships where they're conscious and connected and the people who you're in a relationship with feel that way too maybe you can give it a break I haven't got there yet and for me I think this will be a life long investment this is what I want to get good at I want to get good at

1:23 relationships parenting and every other relationship I have as well for me that takes a real effort and a real investment of time money and mind space it does not come naturally as I'm about to explain to help you get going on your own parental education I've put together a checklist of 10 parenting books you must read now it was super hard to put this list together and it's by no means exhaustive but it's a great place to

1:51 start so download the list print it out if you like and check them off with me as we go through the year I promise you'll find each and every one of these books transformative often when people hear that I love reading parenting books all when they hear that I am a mindful parenting coach they say things like parenting books seriously you don't need to read books by stupid experts who are just trying to sell you stuff experts just trying to play into

2:19 your insecurities experts everyone is an expert about their own kids you don't need anyone telling you how to do this I don't we parenting books parenting comes naturally just like childbirth not gonna be someone else tell me how to raise my kid I get a bit confused by these comments because it seems like most of us know the value of education in most areas of life and in many important tasks in life education is critical and

2:46 compulsory driving a car becoming a doctor fighting fires I'm willing to bet that you received quite a lot of training in your job and the education that we value isn't only in jobs like doctors or firefighters where lives are at stake we receive extensive education in almost any job whether it's through a college degree courses or an apprenticeship when you want to learn a new set of skills and you want to be good at something you need training you

3:13 couldn't get a degree or several you can read books or manuals you can shadow an expert and learn from their experience or you can self teach through watching YouTube tutorials either way to get a new and important skill you studied and it's not like people feel amazingly confident about parenting it seems like parenting and caring for young children is one of the least preferred activities around even or especially by the parents of those children themselves and yet

3:42 despite extreme levels of frustration anger disappointment depression that we experience as parents we seem to be saying collectively as a culture we got this but we don't got this why for three main reasons number one we are not starting fresh people who say we don't need parenting education we don't need to invest in learning how to be good at relationships think that we're starting from a fresh slate and we can make conscious choices about how we want to

4:13 raise our kids that's not the fact none of us were born into a sterile environment where we can just choose who we are and how we behave we were brought up by particular parents in a particular culture in a particular with particular temperaments which means that we have a very big part of who we are and how we default in relationships already decided for us unless we become consciously aware and changed those patterns in other words how you were

4:43 parented is very likely to deeply inform how you parent whether you like it or not and however much criticism you might have for how you were raised a reaction to how you're raised is likely to form a very big part of how you parent your children so even if you're saying I won't do anything like my parents that too is a reaction it's not a neutral starting point most of us have some adjustments that we would like to make

5:08 to parenting our children differently from how we were parented but when you want to make adjustments to things that are so deeply rooted in your very psyche and in your heart you need to take very strong and consistent action to changing old patterns and deep-seated belief systems some of which you might not even be aware that you have number two is that experience doesn't make us better many people tell me well you'll get the hang of it just as you get more

5:35 experience you'll get more wisdom and you'll become a better parent as your kids grow up you'll grow together they say I don't think that's true I don't believe that people get better at things just because they do them some things maybe but some things we actually lose our critical thinking and our awareness as time goes on driving for example or being a doctor these are things that have actually been shown not to improve with experience more experienced doctors

6:04 might be less alert less concerned and aware about the mistakes they might make they might be comfortable and settle in - I got this attitude which means that they don't have beginner's mind in a book by K Anders Ericsson named peek secrets from the new science of expertise Erickson exposes that newer drivers and newer doctors are actually better at their jobs than their more experienced counterparts I have a lot of respect for parents who have a lot of

6:34 experience and I think of course they do learn from that experience but often what we learn is just more of the same we don't actually get new tools new skills or shift our perspectives when we just stay in the same point of view year after year after year in fact we can get more entrenched in our dysfunctional patterns which having a cumulative stressful effect over the years so sometimes more experienced parents can just be parents who are engaging and dysfunctional or

7:03 unhealthy patterns for a longer amount of time and finally the third point is it doesn't come naturally I don't believe that good connected calm and peaceful parenting with firm healthy and assertive boundaries comes naturally I haven't yet met the person that this just comes naturally to when we look at parents around the world and see what is coming naturally what happens when there's no conscious effort to cultivate a different parenting style well what we

7:34 mostly see is cycles of disconnection sometimes dysfunction and even abuse that's what comes naturally yelling punishing screaming shaming blaming humiliating these are what come naturally victimization and aggression come naturally naturally we can be monsters my natural state whatever that means is to be really angry this idea that good parenting comes naturally just doesn't seem to have much evidence for it the flip side is if this comes naturally to you and

8:05 it's easy for you to stay calm and connected and to parent with a sense of strong leadership and assertiveness and empathy and kindness and all of the wonderful things then great you're the red unicorn who doesn't need to read a single parenting book or take a single parenting course for the rest of us we need all the help we can get what's reading a book or two taking a course or two versus the most meaningful profound and important relationships of

8:33 our lives when we think that good relationships simply come naturally that with experience things will sort themselves out or that we get to just start fresh and do it the way we want without a second thought to how we were raised then we inevitably fall into the traps of dysfunctional and unhealthy relationships think about marriages for example when people go into a marriage hopeful and believing that they have a fresh start that their parents relationship isn't going to impact them

8:59 that with experience they'll get better and they'll learn to please each other and love each other over time and that good relationships just come naturally we see the results of this in our 50% of Wars rate we see that it's simply not true that without learning real tools and real skills and getting real support we don't get better at relationships we simply reenact the same unhealthy patterns that we experienced and that we see around us we invest so easily in a

9:28 heartbeat in our careers in our hobbies but not in the most profound and meaningful relationship work we can do raising and growing with another human being and people we love most in the world so next time someone tells you you're silly for reading a parenting book or you should just be able to do this naturally know that this is the biggest and most harmful myth and it's there to shame those of us who are actually trying to get better and

9:53 investing in working hard on the things that are really important in life it's there because people who don't invest in developing those skills honestly I think they feel threatened by those of us who do I think they feel like they need to justify the fact that they're not taking the time and effort that it takes to make real changes in themselves so be proud of the work you do as a parent to educate yourself to shift your paradigms

10:20 and to change your patterns to become more conscious more aware and to gain tools and skills to become a better parent if you're ready to take your parenting and your relationships to the next level I warmly invite you over to the courses section on my website the parenting junkie calm where I also recommend my own further education which is the books that I read keep on loving parenting and parenting from love because your kids need you almost as

10:45 much as you need them if you're looking for a supportive community of like-minded parents I warmly invite you to join our love parenting with a little Facebook group plus head on over to the parenting junkie comm and sign up for email updates so I can give you my free pdf guide ten easy steps to transform your home into a play using Haven the parenting junkie