Parenting for Humans: How to Parent the Child You Have, As the Person You Are

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There's always that moment as a parent when you feel like no matter how hard you're trying, you just can't quite get it 'right'. But the fact is, parenting is hard and once we know this and why, we can forgive ourselves for finding it a struggle, and start to look for the things that make parenting a joy.

Sounds like a simple idea, right? Parenting as part of a relationship. But it is hard! Being a parent is hard work, because these little humans have a lot of needs and don’t always fit very easily into the world around them (a world which can often expect them to behave like little adults). But it is also hard because being a parent can raise so much for us about how we relate to ourselves, other people and the world. It leaves us thinking about how we were raised ourselves, about our current relationships, about what it is like to be a modern parent and the world we have brought these children into. From an evolutionary perspective, it is not surprising that many of us felt so overwhelmed. Despite the common idea that modern family life consists of small, independent units, the reality is that we would often benefit from help from others to raise our offspring. For much of human history, extended families provided that help. In contemporary industrialised societies, where smaller family units are common, teachers, babysitters and other caregivers have allowed us to replicate that ancient support network. Often, though, because we’re human and changing stories is a hard thing to do, we hold tighter to them and wonder what we need to do differently to make that story a reality.Congratulations on your new book ‘Parenting for Humans’ - we can't wait to read it! Could you give our readers a brief synopsis please?

We also see just how impactful people's childhoods are on their present day experience. For that reason, we felt Dr Svanberg's book was a great choice for our Welldoing Book of the Month. Her kind but straightforward guidance, much of which has been fine-tuned in her numerous hours working directly with clients, is something that we hope many of our Welldoing community will enjoy and benefit from. Most parenting advice tells us how we can better parent our children, but not why this can feel so hard. Dr Emma Svanberg focuses on how to bolster ourselves as parents so that parenting can feel like less of a challenge.’ - Anna Whitehouse, author, and host of Dirty Mother Pukka Podcast Thank you! Parenting For Humans takes you through a similarprocess to the one I take clients through in therapy. Rather than offering any parenting advice, it supports you through understanding yourselfand all of the different influences on you now, not just as a parent but as a whole person. When we understand this, we can make choices about whether we actuallywant these things to influence us and how.This can also create space for us to see how these influences can colour the way we see our children and help us to see them for thewhole people they are, too. Then we can meet each other in this complex, lifelong relationship we’re in - with compassion.I’ve been told it is like ‘therapy in a book’ so I hope people can use it to support them in the often challenging task of parenting. To meet our child or children where they are, and as who they are, we need to let go of ideas of success and failure. To let go of the idea that parenting is an achievement. A parent is the person we are – all of us, our whole selves. The bits we like, the bits we wish weren’t there and the many in-betweeny bits. And we parent our child, as the person they are (and, crucially, not the person we wish they were).

Every time you scroll your phone you’ll find a new tip for parenting success. Some scripts to try for a tantrum, a sure-fire strategy for sleep, 5 things you absolutely should never say to a child. Lots of them useful. Lots of them contradictory. All of them based on ideas about children, parents and family which simply may not fit your unique family. When do you think you became a parent? Was it when you knew a child was going to be coming into your life – or did you only start to identify with that role months or even years after you first met them?