Episode 31: Responsive Parenting: There’s No Such Thing As a Perfect Parent

There’s no such thing as a perfect parent, right?! Yet there is a myriad of conflicting parenting advice that puts pressure on parents to be perfect, particularly mothers, and it is hard to know if we are getting it right. Becoming a mother has a funny way of getting us to reflect on how we were parented and at times gives us a way of reparenting ourselves in the process of parenting our children. Rebecca Cefai, a psychologist who has a special interest in perinatal mental health and parenting talks to me about responsive parenting, a parenting style that looks beyond the behaviour and focuses on addressing the emotional and physiological needs of your child. In this episode we talk about responding to your emotional and physical needs as a parent, unlearning the way you were parented, sociocultural messages and how they impact the way we parent and perceive behaviour, parenting differently according to your child’s temperament and individuality, parenting with boundaries, finding your parenting values and managing our own emotions while parenting. It's a biggie!

 

You can find Rebecca here: https://www.growinggentlypsychology.com.au/ 

Or on Instagram @growinggentlypsychology