Newsflash: It's Not All Nurture
Mar 12, 2024
Nature or Nurture?
Newsflash: It's Not All Nurture - For many of us, this question is old and settled: Kids are influenced by both - it is neither nature (their fundamental personality) nor nurture (the environment in which they were raised) that solely explains a child's trajectory. We know this.
But do we? The way I hear it from parents, it seems we go all-in on nurture and almost throw nature in the trash. Every day, I see parents:
♦ Carrying a heavy load of responsibility, blame, and shame for their kids' struggles and
♦ Blind to, or subconsciously denying, who their kids really are.
Out of Our Hands
I get it. We want to be in control and believe that something as important as our kids' lives isn't out of our hands. But nurture-centric parenting becomes paradoxically selfish and accidentally creates precisely what we don't want! Think about it—overemphasizing the parents' role while downplaying the child's nature makes a world that revolves around the parents and doesn't acknowledge who that child really is! Not to mention the crushing load of guilt and pressure it puts on us!
Here's a great example: I am currently working with a dad who for years avoided getting testing and a diagnosis for his daughter with autism and put tons of energy into "parenting her better" so she'd become better at socializing, following school rules, and participating in extracurriculars. "I didn't want her to have this hard life, and I felt like a failure that she struggled." How awful for everyone!
But now this dad is learning to work with the nature side of the equation - he's honoring who his daughter really is by incorporating school supports, creating a parenting strategy that works for both of them and relaxing around his idea of what things are supposed to look like. And he doesn't have to carry the weight of guilt and responsibility anymore. So much better!
I help my clients not only accept but embrace the parts of their kids' stories that are out of their hands. I teach them to focus on the balance of nature and nurture—creating environments that respond to kids' true selves and working through emotions when their kids' natures bring stuff up.
Are you carrying it ALL?
How about you? Are you carrying it ALL? Beating yourself up for your child's mistakes, misbehavior, or challenges? Maybe pretending you don't notice the truth about who your kiddo is? I can help!
Set up a free Discovery Call with me, and let's start changing things! I will show you how to regain balance, and what it looks like to NURTURE YOUR CHILD'S NATURE (see what I did there? Pretty clever, eh?). You'll walk away from our call with guidance you can implement immediately and a path forward for you and your child. At the very least, you'll be able to let yourself off that nurture-obsessed hook we all hang ourselves on sometimes.
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