Some children need ‘Superparents’ - the premise of Amber Elliot’s book for therapeutic parents. But striving to be the perfect parent for our child is soul destroying. Sometimes we reach a point where we can say “I’m confident that I’m doing my best and I’m confident that my best is good enough.” And we need to resist the urge to keep looking inward at the part we’re playing and thinking about what we need to address within ourselves.
A lot of the challenges that parents of traumatised children (and children with other additional needs) experience have very little to do with our parenting. Yes we can make things an awful lot worse - and lots of us have at times. But there’s a point at which things will be difficult but it’s as good as it’s going to get and there’s not a lot we can do to make it much better. The cost would be too high for minimal impact.
So take a breath and accept that you’re doing the best you can and you are plenty good enough for your child. Modelling acceptance for our flaws, for our humanity, can be incredibly freeing for our children. It can take a weight off and can help them to accept themselves for who they are.
It also creates the opportunity for our kids to shine. In my experience even children who display the most challenging behaviour at times can surprise us with their empathy and kindness when we get things wrong. They know how it feels to fall short of other people’s expectations. They experience it a lot. What they don’t experience so much is the opportunity to offer kindness and comfort when other people mess up. A very powerful and much-needed experience for them.