The internet is a great place, but it is full of tons of “experts” and a few actual experts who all have different opinions about EVERYTHING you do as a parent. I am all for following social media accounts that provide bite-size information and guidance to troubleshoot the stuck parts of parenting, but they all become problematic when they tell you that deviating just once from their $99 course is going to destroy your kiddo’s attachment style for life and that they also will probably be 10 before they potty train and will never sleep through the night ever…. In selling a brand, some of the parenting “experts” have effectively stifled parents’ own instinctual value systems. Let’s turn down the volume of the “experts” and support you in the choices that align with your values as a mom!

Look…toddlers are a special breed of dysregulated big feelings and they love with their whole bodies! Raising them is an intricate dance of near constant that tests even the most emotional balanced parents.

Toddlers entire developmental job is to find boundaries and then bump up against them repeatedly so they know they are steadfast, so they know YOU are steadfast. And listen, that shit is hard okay? Being forced to regulate yourself through moments of frustration and fear while the cutest 35 inch tiny human you’ve ever seen goes feral and throws the thing one more time or goes limp as you try to walk them away from the park is an Olympic sport.

It’s hard, but it doesn’t have to be impossible. When you accept that the things that trigger you most aren’t about your kiddo, but are about your own bullshit, that’s where the healing happens!

So you want to parent differently? Maybe differently than your friend who you’ve silently judged for several years (it’s okay, we all do it) or differently than your own parents parented you. You’re overwhelmed about the difference between respectful parenting and gentle parenting and authoritative parenting and this interesting parenting thing you saw on TikTok has your wheels spinning? Finding your parenting values is actually kind of challenging—in our worst moments we default to what our brains remember from our Boomer/Gen X parents and overriding that to actually apply any of the information that resonates more is a lot harder than it looks! Once you tease free your own values, you can shift into patterns and behaviors that align with YOUR inner voice.

On the heels of Pinterest perfect kids’ lunches and hours-long craft projects for every minor holiday (looking at you leprechaun trap), I invite you to give yourself permission to just be “good enough.” There’s no gold star for perfect parenting (probably because the perfect parent has never existed) and expecting perfectionism is going to lead to a blame game with no winner. Good Enough Parents strive to be respectful, responsive, present in moments where they are present, attuned to their child’s wants and needs, empathetic, able to make repairs and reflective. Most importantly, they are confident that good enough parenting is good enough! (Research has shown time and time again we only need to “get it right” about 50% of the time to maintain positive attachment with our tiny people…we can fail tremendously on most grading scales and we’re still good enough!)