10 Reasons Why You Might not Enjoy Parenting
Loving your children and enjoying parenting are not necessarily the same thing. In my experience as a parent coach there are a lot of people struggling to find joy in their parenting but there can be so much shame around admitting you are not enjoying parenting.
The parent might compare themselves to others who seem to be enjoying parenting and say to themselves “There must be something wrong with me”.
The truth is that parents who are not enjoying parenting need support but shame is such a paralysing emotion it stops the parent from seeking support.
The average lifespan is 4000 weeks and you will spend roughly 1000 weeks with your children living at home. This is your life. If you are not enjoying it you have the power to change it if you are willing to be brave. The first step is awareness so listed bellow are 6 reasons why parents might not be enjoying parenting:
Emily Hughes- Empowered Parenting Coach
I am an Empowered Parenting Coach, I help parents who are struggling, to understand themselves and their kids better; essentially so they can have a nicer life! Because, if you are living in conflict and struggle with your kids then that’s a life less rich. Contact me today to see how parent coaching could work for you.
Constantly Tiggered- Being constantly triggered by your kids can be a sign that you dont fully understand yourself. In coaching we look at moments when you are triggered by your child as little gifts to help you understand yourself better starting with labelling and recognising your feelings
Overstimulation- if you are easily over stimulated parenting is a lot- children are noisy. See my instagram post on over stimulation
Introversion- it can be very tough parenting as an introvert when you crave alone time. The first 8 years of parenting are particularly intense. Your children want to be with you all the time because being with you is safety but if you are an introvert you may be quickly depleted by such attention.
Parenting can bring up the parents own childhood trauma. This is a big one. Many people are not aware that they have childhood trauma or gaslight their experience of childhood “Oh it wasn't so bad” but leaning into your pain from childhood possibly with the support of a psychotherapist can be the path to setting yourself free from it.
Not feeling connected to their children. A lot of what I coach people on is how to have better relationships with their kids.. because it follows naturally that if you have better relationships parenting is more enjoyable. Connecting to your children starts with connecting to yourself but many of us are so disconnected from ourselves they don’t even understand what it means to connect to yourself.
6. Not having tools for peaceful parenting- everything feeling like a conflict. This one makes so much sense because parents are given close to no support and yet parenting is such hard work. Because we are not given a clear roadmap of how to parent, parents can feel stuck in guilt, doubt confusion or conflict. In parent coaching making maps to peace is what we do.
7. Exhaustion and burn out- we live in very difficult times to parent so much is expected of us and yet we are given so little time and so little support. We are expected to do everything and be everything… but we are only human. Parenting was never meant to be like this… but it is so we need support.
8. Constant Sibling Conflict- This can be so draining. You so want your siblings to get along… and they don’t so life is noisy, conflict fueled and exhausting. See my Siblings Course.
9. Conflict with Co-Parent- We are not taught how to communicate peacefully and that sucks… because peacefull communication skills benefit everyone. See my Parenting Courses Page for my Co Parent Communication offering.
10. You wish your child would be different. This is something people are scared to say out loud but so many parents are stuck in this. They don’t want to feel like this but they also struggle to accept their child.
