I have three kids, yet I still feel like a total novice at parenting. I constantly feel challenged and often defeated. It's not an easy job. The responsibility of developing the little ones while also trying to develop yourself is overwhelming. How do you make them soft and empathetic while also strong and gritty? I wish I had a life tutor by my side, guiding me and helping me avoid bad decisions. In the end, the best thing we can do for our kids is not to "parent them" but to show them our loving relationships, our devotion to work, how we deal with obstacles, and how we aim for higher goals. Show them how we handle money and responsibility. We don't need to tell them what to do if we actually live by example. That's what all those smart books say, right? Sounds simple? Not to me.
It's the biggest challenge. Can we afford to make mistakes? What if we can't handle emotions well, what if we just want to lie on the sofa and watch a series instead of working on a deep research problem, what if we're really bad at cleaning or managing our money? Being a parent has highlighted my weak sides. I want to be my best self, but I am still who I am, and I feel embarrassed in front of my kids. The more I tried to present myself in a better light, the more stressed, tired, and harsh I became, forgetting the most important rule—that creating a loving, understanding environment is more important than a perfect one. I struggle to allow myself to make mistakes and to be weak in front of my kids. But I am human. And humans make mistakes; humans are meant to be human, not perfect. How do we not forget how awesome we actually are when we become parents?
I haven't read that many books on parenting, but here are a few I found interesting:
The first book I would definitely recommend is Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill by Matthieu Ricard. While it’s not specifically a parenting book, I believe it would greatly help with parenting. The book focuses on finding happiness within yourself. It’s thought-provoking and deeply resonates with your feelings. It's the kind of book you can read over and over, always finding a sense of calm. It teaches you not to base your happiness on the behavior of others but to seek it within. Though the topic is common in self-development books, Ricard's work goes deep and avoids the shallow, quickly drafted feel of many others.
The second book I recommend is Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids by Dr. Laura Markham. We received it from our aunt and uncle when we had our baby. This book explores how to implement a demanding yet non-authoritative parenting style. It teaches you how to regulate your child's emotions, challenge them with tasks, and build a strong connection. It emphasizes the importance of the feeling of mastery for their further development. I like that I felt motivated not terrible after reading the book and I got a lot of interesting ideas while reading.
The third book I recommend is Grit by Angela Duckworth. Angela is a researcher and she worked with people from various fields, from football to science and entrepreneurship, to discover what enables them to achieve so much in their lives. Her research shows that these individuals don't rely on luck or special intellectual gifts but possess grit. In the book, she explores how grit can be developed throughout life. An important message is that allowing kids to master tasks on their own might seem like non-loving behavior from the parent and requires strength on the parent's part. However, it leads to children who can handle life's difficulties and learn from mistakes without feeling defeated. I liked to see the ways how she actually tried to research grit and what methods she used as well the stories of the people she talked to.
Finally, a typical parenting book that every parent should read is Respect and Be Respected by Jana Nováčková and Ditta Nešporová. Be careful that this book doesn't make you feel bad about yourself, because you might find yourself in many of the "bad examples" of the conversations same as I did. But if you can handle that and still keep head up, then go for it. I found the most important part of the book the one which highlights "and be respected." Parenting shouldn't just be about respecting the child but about creating an environment where respect is given to all family members. The book emphasizes understanding the effects of our actions on others. It includes several examples of conversations between kids and parents, illustrating how these conversations can be conducted differently to foster mutual respect.
The biggest issue I feel when reading books like this is the tendency to feel terrible about myself for not managing everything perfectly. I try to remember that it's like reading an engineering book and wondering why I can't be the best engineer in every aspect or why I haven't built all the things described. I know that only by feeling motivated, rather than defeated, can I improve and learn. However, it's really hard when it involves your family and kids.
Here’s my final advice for any parenting effort: ensure you get regular, good sleep, engage in regular physical activity to get those endorphins flowing, and maintain regular loving interactions with your partner to get love endorphins. With these in place, being a good parent becomes much easier (and now tell me why if I know it I do not follow it properly?—well, we are humans, right? Even if we know the right way, we love to always challenge it!). 😊
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