The Power of Sharing With Other Parents

This week’s post is by featured contributor Esther Schiedel. We hope you enjoy it and, as always, we look forward to future posts by Esther. 

I remember facilitating a group once when a parent tentatively brought up the subject of his son’s sensitive feet, “he refuses to wear socks—he says they have bumps that bother him.” To his surprise, several parents—including me–spoke up. “Oh yes, my son turns his socks inside out.” “My daughter just wears sandals.” “Sock bumps, I’m very familiar with that phenomenon.”

Sharing his experience benefited this parent and the other parents in the group. How? They all gained:

• Perspective on what’s normal
• Sources of support
• Insight and options
• Recognition of strengths

Perspective: Hearing from other parents changed this dad’s perspective. He realized he wasn’t facing a unique situation, nor was his son completely unusual. He wasn’t alone. His story also benefited the other parents—they knew their children weren’t completely unusual. Parents unfamiliar with the phenomenon learned that some children have sensitive feet.

We start our journey as parents with different levels of knowledge and experience with children. It’s worthwhile to hear from other parents (as well as from credible resources) about common behaviors. Parents with children in the same daycare or school can also clue us in to what our children’s social environment is like.

Whether we are conscious of it or not we are always asking: Who is my child? How is my child like others? How is my child different from others?

What if no one else had experienced sock bumps? Trained facilitators can provide perspective based on their knowledge about child development and individual temperament. And provide other resources for that parent and child. Whether the experience is common or unusual, hearing about it benefits all the parents.

No matter how knowledgeable we are about developmental stages, temperamental traits, typical behaviors, and parenting strategies, actually being a parent to our own child(ren) is different from reading, watching, and even caring for other people’s children. Because being a parent brings up our own issues. We need perspective on what it’s like to be a parent. How does it feel when my child refuses to wear socks? What does it mean about me as a parent? Am I somehow causing this behavior? How should I react?

Sources of Support: Many studies of workplaces and employees have found that interaction with fellow workers is an important factor in job satisfaction and performance. Parenting is a relationship, but it is also a job. Classes and groups provide support that is centered on the work of parenting. Does support solve the issues? Not necessarily.  But having someone to talk to (and complain to) who understands what you are going through is a tremendous help. And sharing information about everyday challenges helps create friendships among parents which benefits both them and their children. Many groups focus on specific challenges or ages: breastfeeding; postpartum health; toddlers; teenagers; special needs; and many others.

Insight and options: We often gain insight into a situation simply by talking about it out loud or explaining it to others. Questions from others can lead us to think more deeply about possible causes or contributing factors to a problem. Other parents’ experiences further our understanding and help us consider other approaches to the situation.

Facilitated parenting classes and support groups establish ground rules about sharing. These may include: confidentiality, respect, right to pass (not to share something), no judgment, and sharing from your own experience/background. Participants and facilitators DON’T tell others what to do.

Facilitators provide evidence-based strategies that have proven helpful to others and the rationale behind those strategies. Although most parenting curriculums have suggestions for how to handle specific problems, facilitators recognize that what works for one family and one child may not be right for another.

Sharing experiences and ideas respectfully allows other parents to consider and choose how they want to respond to a situation. Respect also helps give parents more confidence in their ability to deal with the challenges they face.

Hearing about the other parent’s experiences provided that father with ideas about how his situation might be handled: maybe turning the socks inside out would work for his child; perhaps together they could find socks that didn’t seem bumpy; maybe going without socks was normal and acceptable and therefore NOT a problem.

Recognition of strengths: Sharing about problems we have experienced and how we handled them also benefits us as parents. Amidst the endless work of parenting and daily life, we often don’t consider the challenges we have already faced and overcome—we are busy dealing with the latest challenges! Taking time to reflect on our experiences—and sharing them out loud with other parents helps us recognize our abilities and strengths. Maybe it is simply realizing that we survived a difficult time and that it didn’t last forever. Maybe it was that we figured out a strategy that worked well. Reflecting on things that didn’t go well is helpful, too. Instead of berating ourselves for mistakes, we can choose to learn from them. Our parenting abilities are like our muscles—they get stronger the more we work with them.

Parenting provides us with many, many opportunities for learning and growing. Parenting education and parenting support groups help us make the most of those opportunities.

Esther Schiedel is parent to three adults, grandparent to three boys, and a Certified Family Life Educator. She provides parenting education through classes and workshops through LBCC and through her business, Sharing Strengths. She became interested in parenting education when she became a parent and had a need for more information and support.