How to Be a Good Enough Parent: Finding That Just Right Balance With Your Kids

If you are reading this, chances are you are either a parent, know a parent, or have a parent yourself. Everyone has some sort of connection to parenting. Similarly, almost everyone has an opinion about how to parent. New parents are inundated with solicited and unsolicited advice. We are led to believe that parents have myriad ways to fail their children and send them down a path of failure, unhappiness, and destitution if they don’t do and say just the right things at just the right times. Fortunately, this is just not true! Parents don’t need to be perfect. In fact, they shouldn’t be! One just needs to be a “good enough parent.”

What is a good enough parent?

Evolving from D.W. Winnicott’s concept of the “good enough mother,” being a good enough parent is a child-rearing approach that emphasizes the impossibility of perfection. Not only is perfection unattainable, but it can leave children ill-prepared for reality. Often parents may feel that even their slightest mistakes will have a lasting impact on their children. However, children are far more resilient than parents may believe. Resilience, adaptability, and independence are more likely to be developed by children who are faced with a healthy amount of disappointment and frustration, especially from their parents. While the “good enough parent” standard shifts throughout a child’s development, parents who are generally present and supportive should forgive, and maybe even congratulate themselves for being less than perfect.

Parenting Styles

There is a virtually countless number of books and articles written about parenting, so it is no surprise that a variety of parenting styles with catchy names exist. However, parents may want to steer clear of emulating many of these styles. So before we discuss the good enough parent, let’s start by exploring some other, less successful approaches. 

Helicopter Parenting

As the name suggests, helicopter parenting involves a caregiver constantly hovering over a child. Helicopter parents stay close and are arguably overly involved in the lives of their children. They strive to protect their children from disappointment, failure, and frustration. Similarly, helicopter parents hover over their children to help push them toward success. While none of that sounds particularly problematic (who would want their kids to suffer or fail?), this style of parenting has been shown to inhibit children from developing a sense of independence. A lack of independence could lead to an inability to successfully handle challenges and disappointments, which are inevitable at some point in every child’s future.

Lawnmower (or Bulldozer or Snowplow) Parenting

There are a few different names for this style of parenting. Lawnmower parenting is like helicopter parenting, but even more involved. Rather than hovering over their children poised to rescue them, these parents actively look to remove challenges and difficulties from their children’s lives (cutting down or pushing them aside). Just like helicopter parents, lawnmower parents mean well, but their children may be left ill equipped for failure when they are older.

Tiger Parenting

Tiger parenting involves a more authoritative and strict approach with the goal of cultivating high-achieving children. This parenting style often involves a high level of pressure for success and an avoidance of activities that may distract from that goal. While tiger parents may have the best intentions, this approach to parenting may not lead to greater success and could, instead, result in increased anxiety and depression.

Winnicott’s Good Enough Parent

Donald Woods Winnicott was a British pediatrician and psychoanalyst who specialized in child development. Winnicott established the concept of good enough parenting, at the time specifically focusing on the “good enough mother.” He recognized that children’s needs shift as they grow. While parents have to adapt to those changes, they will inevitably be misaligned at times. However, a solid base of consistency, love, and support will protect from any mistakes that may happen along the way. Children just aren’t as fragile as some parents may worry. Their resilience means they can withstand the occasional parental misstep. Additionally, as the parenting styles discussed above focus on making life easier for children, the good enough parent welcomes imperfection for the value it provides to developing children.

Perfection Isn’t Possible or Preferred

Perfection is impossible! As much as we might wish for it, perfection as a parent is absolutely unattainable. Too many variables across too much time make mistakes inevitable. In case you haven’t caught on to the theme of this post, we don’t need or even want perfect parents. Striving for the impossible goal of perfection to be the best parent causes its own problems. In fact, embracing imperfection in the parent-child relationship can lead to quite a few benefits.

The Bad Seems Even Worse

When perfection is the goal, every problem may seem even worse, and children are set up for failure. Every disappointment or error can sting even more if children see it as proof that they will never reach that perfect goal. However, if mistakes can be normalized as a regular part of life, accepting them will be all the easier and children will develop valuable life skills. 

Adaptability

When perfection isn’t the goal, children can come to expect the healthy, realistic amount of failure or disappointment that is a part of life. Additionally, when they see their parents as fallible, children may learn how to solve problems for themselves. Parents likely won’t always be present or have the ability to fix a problem. This is why it’s important for children to learn to how to find their own solutions or how to adapt when there are no solutions. 

Blame

The idea that perfection is attainable often leads to the belief that anything less than perfection must be someone’s fault. A problem must be the result of someone not trying hard enough. We know this isn’t true, but a perfectionist parent can fall into the trap of blaming themselves, the other parent, or the child when problems arise. This erroneous way of thinking can cause rifts within the family and be a model for a problematic behavior the children could adopt.

Disillusionment

Sometimes parents get annoyed with or feel disappointed in their children. This doesn’t mean they are bad parents, just that they are human. Similarly, children can become disillusioned with their parents. Along with being a natural part of life, this reality check can actually be a good thing. As children grow and mature, they increasingly develop autonomy and independence from their parents. This includes developing an understanding that their parents are fallible and human. This, in turn, can help inspire children to find their own solutions. Additionally, parents can serve as a model by exhibiting a healthy understanding and acceptance of their own flaws or mistakes.

Rupture & Repair

Parents are attuned to their children when they are aware of and able to respond to their emotional and physical needs. This attunement can influence how safe and understood children feel and can play an important role in their attachment style. When this attunement is missing, it can lead to a rupture between parent and child. Fortunately, evidence suggests that constant attunement between parent and child isn’t necessary. According to American developmental psychologist Edward Tronick, parents seem to be fully attuned with their children only 20-30% of the time. In fact, misattunement and rupture present a valuable opportunity for repair.

Read more about children’s attachment styles

The rupture-repair process comes with a wealth of learning opportunities for a child. For example, the child can learn: 

1. how to admit mistakes and accept responsibility, 
2. how to tolerate distress and regulate emotions,
3. how to solve problems and resolve conflicts, and
4. how to improve communication and mend relationships

Through rupture and repairing, parents can model those behaviors to their children and help them learn healthy interpersonal habits. Additionally, the rupture and ensuing repair can even strengthen the bond between parents and children. When disagreements are confidently and competently resolved, children learn that minor conflicts pose no real threat. This helps them feel more safe and secure in their relationships. 

What Exactly Is “Good Enough”?

Now we know that perfection isn’t the goal, but what exactly is “good enough”? Well, that’s part of the beauty of this approach. Parenting doesn’t have a strict set of rules you need to follow. If you’re present and available to your children most of the time, congratulations! That’s “good enough”!

You probably didn’t read all this way to leave without getting a little more than that, did you? The following aren’t hard and fast rules, but here are a few concepts to keep in mind on your journey to being good enough.

“Good Enough” Evolves

It may go without saying, but what’s good enough for an infant is different from what is good enough for a teenager. Infants, being essentially helpless and unable to fulfill their needs, require A LOT of attention, care, and time. Babies are virtually helpless and unable to fulfill their needs. Fortunately, their needs are fairly simple. As children grow, their needs become increasingly varied and more complex. However, a parental misstep becomes much less problematic and can even be helpful. Stay flexible and attuned to a child’s changing needs to help determine what is good enough at each stage.

Understanding, Not Creating

Often parents view their role as a sort of creator or shaper. They aim to mold their children into becoming the people they believe their children should be. The good-enough- parent approach emphasizes the importance of getting to know, understand, and support whomever a child wants to be. Of course, children have a lot to learn and are not always able to express, or even understand, themselves clearly and logically.  However, if parents try to understand and connect to their children rather than correct or fix them, their relationship will have more opportunity to grow into a cooperative, collaborative partnership. The child will feel supported and better able to flourish. By strengthening their own empathy, maturity, and mindfulness, parents can be more tuned in and able to cultivate an understanding of their children.

Read more about the benefits of mindfulness

Back to the Present

Many parents spend countless hours plotting out the perfect life trajectory for their children. They will make each parenting decision with that focus in mind. However, it may be more important to come back from that imaginary future and focus more on the present. Ultimately, children will have to make their own decisions about their goals and aspirations. Parents can best prepare them to make those decisions by focusing on making their childhood good enough by helping their children feel supported, loved, and free to make mistakes.

Giving Space

As children grow and mature, they exhibit a continuous drive toward independence. The desire to be independent can be thwarted by helicopter or lawnmower parents. Giving children the space and freedom to be imperfect, to try things and fall short, can help children grow in a variety of valuable ways.

Similarly, children can also thrive when given the space for independent play. Many parents feel the need to fill every moment of their children’s days with activities. While novel or educational experiences are valuable, so is free time during which children can be creative and self-guided. This type of play can improve problem solving, increase confidence, and help children learn to ward off boredom on their own.

Invite Feedback

If you really wonder how you’re doing as a parent, don’t be afraid to ask your children for their feedback. Set aside  time to check in as a family about how things are going. Giving space for feedback may provide valuable insight into how your children are experiencing your interactions. Of course, you may have to explain away the initial “ice-cream-for-breakfast” or “no-more-chores” requests. However, by establishing a safe space to discuss family dynamics and your child’s needs, you could help foster a sense of safety and connection. This sense of safety can improve communication and even establish a comfortable forum for discussing a wide variety of important issues.

Nobody ever said that parenting is easy. However, it may not need to be quite as hard as we make it. Try to give yourself and your children the freedom to be less than perfect. Doing so may actually help your child become an even more capable and emotionally healthy adult. We can’t be perfect parents. Studies suggest it probably isn’t even a good idea to try to be. So, for the sake of our children’s success, and our sanity, we may want to embrace being a good enough parent as being just right.

Are you interested in learning how to be a good enough parent? Reach out to myTherapyNYC to find out which of our therapists would be a good fit for you!

What ways have you found to be a good enough parent? Join in the conversation in the comments below!