The Good Enough Parent

By: Kristin Redington Bennett, PhD

This is a hard time to be a parent. This is a hard time to be a teacher.  And surely, there has never been a more confusing time for kids to begin a new school year. The last school year ended in-person learning abruptly, and it is not clear how learning or social progress has been impacted.  It is likely that some kids (and families) were more negatively impacted than others. Every child’s experience of the pandemic has been different – based upon what has happened to their own family and community.

“Good enough parents do not strive to be perfect parents and do not expect perfection from their children.”

With so much change going on, it can be really hard to meet the expectations that we may have placed on ourselves as parents, spouses, friends, and colleagues. I am a Type 1 on the Enneagram. This type is known as the "Rational, Idealistic" type and is often described as principled, purposeful, self-controlled, and perfectionistic. That sounds like a perfect recipe for calm, go with the flow, COVID parenting, right? Wrong. In times like these, the bookworm in me turns to the comfort of the tried and true authors from my training. In this case, I turned to Bruno Betteheim, author of The Good Enough Parent. In this book, his purpose is not to give parents preset rules for raising their children, but rather to show them how to develop their own insights so that they will understand their own and their children's behavior in different situations and how to cope with it. Above all, he warns, parents must not indulge their impulse to try to create the child they would like to have, but should instead help each child fully develop into the person he or she would like to be. In times of calm, I know this to be true, but it certainly helps to be reminded from time to time so that I can bring this soothing idea to the 'top of mind.'

As kids begin this new school year, there are new demands on parents to adapt to less-than-perfect situations and help their children to adapt, as best they can. The new school year – whether it begins and ends in-person or online – will require parents to model kindness, patience, and understanding. Most parents will look back on the start of this school year as one of the most difficult they will have ever experienced, but also with pride and satisfaction that they did the best they could with what they had. As parents model this coping and problem-solving, kids, too, will discover resilience in themselves that they may not have recognized before. Parents can assist kids with a new sense of what they can do to help themselves through a difficult time. So, the bright side is, despite the unknowns, this year will bring new opportunities for parents and kids to learn adaptability, flexibility, patience, and problem-solving together.