Trust Yourself is an article of The Common Sense Guide to Baby and Child Care by Dr. Benjamin Spock.
You know more than you think you do. Your family is growing and changing. You want to be the best parent you can be, but it’s not always clear what’s best. Everywhere you turn there are experts telling you what to do. The problem is, they often don’t agree with each other. The world is different from how it was twenty years ago, and the old answers might not work anymore.
Trust Yourself | The Common Sense Guide to Baby and Child Care by Dr. Benjamin Spock
Don’t take too seriously all that the neighbors say. Don’t be overawed by what the experts say. Don’t be afraid to trust your own common sense. Bringing up your child won’t be a complicated job if you take it easy and trust your own instincts. The natural loving care that parents give their children is a hundred times more important than their knowing how to make a diaper fit tightly or just when to introduce solid foods. Every time you pick your baby up—even if you do it a little awkwardly at first—and change her, bathe her, feed her, smile at her, she’s getting the feeling that she belongs to you and that you belong to her.
The more people have studied different methods of bringing up children, the more they have come to the conclusion that what good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is usually best after all. All parents do their best job when they have a natural, easy confidence in themselves. Better to relax and make a few mistakes than to try too hard to be perfect.
If you don’t always respond instantly when your baby cries, your baby has the opportunity to learn self-soothing. If you lose your patience with your toddler (and every parent does, sometimes), then your toddler learns that you have feelings, too, and has a chance to see how you get yourself back together. Children are driven from within themselves to grow, explore, experience, learn, and build relationships with other people. A lot of good parenting lies in simply
allowing your child to go with these powerful drives. So, while you are trusting yourself, remember also to trust your child.
How you learn to be a parent. Fathers and mothers don’t really find out how to care for and manage children from books and lectures, though these may help by answering specific questions and doubts. They learn as children, from the way they themselves were brought up. That’s what they were always practicing when they played house and cared for their dolls.
If a child is raised in an easygoing way, then he is likely to be the same kind of parent; likewise for a child raised by strict or controlling parents. We all end up at least somewhat like our parents, especially in the way we deal with our children. The moment will come when you are talking to your child and you hear your mother’s or father’s voice coming from your own lips with almost the same tone and maybe even the same words.
Think about your own parents. What did they do that you now see as positive and constructive? What did they do that you never want to repeat? Think about what made you the kind of person you are today and what kind of parent you would like to be. This sort of insight will help you understand and trust your own parenting instincts.
We learn how to be parents gradually, through the experience of caring for our children. With a baby, finding out that you can feed, change, and bathe successfully, and that your baby responds contentedly, builds confidence and
familiarity. These feelings grow in time; you probably won’t feel this way right off the bat.
All parents expect to influence their children, but many are surprised to find that it’s a two-way street. You may find, as many others have, that being a parent becomes the most important step in your own growth as a person.