The secret I wish every parent knew

I need to share a secret with you.

It’s the secret I wish EVERY parent knew. 

Because we feel like the battling through each day and crashing on the couch in an exhausted heap each night as a parent, is the norm. Only to have a broken night's sleep because our child has a temperature. Then repeating the cycle the next day. 

Most families live like this. It’s sometimes enough for them or sometimes they don’t know any other way. 

But for me, it’s not what I wanted. 

I wanted somewhat what I had envisioned family life to be. I say “somewhat” because anyone who got the kid that they envisioned and knew exactly how to parent them is a very skilled psychic!

I wanted laughs, hugs and conversations around the dinner table - even in the teens years! 

And this is the reality I live in today.

But if I said I just had great kids and took to parenting like a duck to water - I’d be outright lying. 

Sure, there were some things that came naturally to me, like giving hugs and being at hand to fix up a hurt knee or being super organised with dinners. But the truth is that when I did all of those things I felt accomplished, but not fulfilled. 

For me, fulfilment feels like living a family life on my terms.

Like when we set a goal in every other area of our life…be that financial, health etc. We begin with a vision of what we want and we then break down the steps to make that a reality. 

Well, the same goes for parenting. Only we’re so exhausted by parenting and the realities of all the responsibilities that come with it, we rarely prioritise how we want our family life to be. 

It becomes the default, or the bedtime chapter of a parenting book we squeeze into our already busy schedule.  Not because it’s not important. Family is the MOST important thing to us.   It’s simply because we are just trying to get through the day and brace ourselves for another.

And this continues until we break the cycle. Until we learn that we can change our daily reality, TODAY. 

By working on ourselves - becoming aware of how we perceive time, how we perceive our parent load, how we perceive our child and our partner.

Perception drives our reality. And if we want our reality to change our perception HAS to change.

Otherwise, we become like everyone else, who says this is just how things are in this phase of family life. Like everyone who tells me daily, teens are a nightmare. They told me the same when they were toddlers.  Are they? Or is it our perception of them?

A family I worked with this week said to me that through all the strategies they tried that failed to help their child and the behavioural pushback they were getting, they hadn’t anticipated the power of changing their perception and their feelings towards their child, which is transforming their child’s behaviour and they are living more of the family life they envisioned every. single. day. 

That’s the secret I want EVERY parent to know…your perception changes your family's reality. Our thoughts permeate every interaction, in every single moment and affect the outcome.  Or in the words of one of my mentors Mike Dooley, “thoughts become things.”

If you’re ready to have a different experience of family life, the one you envisioned, the waitlist is now open for the Stressed to Best Parent Method. We kick off the week beginning 6th May. 

Hit reply and ask me any questions. Don't be shy - I love hearing from you! 

Much love

Dina xxx