Richard Hogan: A good enough parenting job is perfectly fine

Of course we will get things wrong, and of course our children will make mistakes. But we have all come to fear mistakes. Terrified we may be getting it wrong.

Richard Hogan: "Parents often sit in my clinic and say ‘I shouted at my child last night do you think I have damaged them for life?’ I always respond saying the same thing 'Well, if they haven’t heard a roar out of you from time to time before they are 18, you have damaged them, because real life isn’t going to be perfect and without the odd roar'."

What happened to fun?

At the very least, what happened to failing or making mistakes? The moments in childhood where things went absurdly wrong. Do you remember them? The fun you had when you didn’t do what you were supposed to do?

I remember the mid 80s, myself and a friend walking to school chatting about football... and before we knew what we were doing we were frantically running up the back fields, hands in the reeds in the morning sun. We could hear school going on, the bell ringing, the children out in the yard for lunch while us Tom Sawyers were up a tree singing, ‘wake me up before you go go’. It seems we were making far too much noise while swinging out of the branches as unfortunately a neighbour heard us and our ' Ferris Bueller’s Day Off' was busted.

I clearly remember my mother ringing my friend's parents telling them not to be too hard on their son, because it was probably her son's idea to skip school. She was right.

Another time, I was coming home from a friend’s house and I was passing the Douglas Church Christmas tree, I stopped to take in its splendour. I was no more than 10 years old. I had the maddening impulse to bring that festive cheer home.
And without too much thought I was up the great tree, trying to take a light bulb for my own room.

Unfortunately, I was no criminal mastermind, because a garda spotted me and my dreams of Christmas were over. He brought me home. My grandmother answered the door, and when she saw the cut of me walking behind the stern officer, she said: "What has my son done now?". My head popped up [she was about 78 at the time, and she wasn’t a youthful looking 78 either] and the garda didn’t know what to say. A Christmas miracle. I was saved!

As the door closed and garda headed off, my grandmother turned to me and said: "I think we fooled him!"

We all need to lighten up a bit. The pursuit to be the 'perfect' parent — never getting things wrong, always being there to support and say the right thing at the right time so that our children will never make a mistake — is a ridiculous endeavour.

Of course we will get things wrong, and of course our children will make mistakes. Adolescences is all about making those mistakes. That’s why the prefrontal control system develops after the impulse system in the brain... evolution wants our children to go out into the world feelingly and learn from those moments when things do not go their way.

But we have all come to fear mistakes. Terrified we may be getting it wrong. We fear we might be saying the wrong thing as a parent or that we are not getting things absolutely right. If you listened to social media, you need a PhD in psychology and child development to successfully raise children.

It’s rubbish. We all need to take a deep breath and tell ourselves; we are doing a good enough job at parenting, and good enough is perfectly fine. Parents often sit in my clinic and say ‘I shouted at my child last night do you think I have damaged them for life?’ I always respond saying the same thing 'Well, if they haven’t heard a roar out of you from time to time before they are 18, you have damaged them, because real life isn’t going to be perfect and without the odd roar'.

Whenever I shout up the stairs for my kids to come down for dinner or to turn off the lights, my middle daughter Lizzy will say 'Guys, the family therapist is roaring at us!’  He is!

We have all become consumed with perfection. We won’t have the perfect relationship with our child. We will have arguments... they will push the boundaries... we will wonder why our family isn’t going the way we had hoped it would go... and we will feel that things could be better. 

The pressure on parents to constantly get things right can be immense, they are surrounded with social media, the competitiveness with other parents chatting at the school gate, the romantic ideas we had about family before we launched off into our own one, can all diminish the joy of being a parent.

I know we all want our children to do well in exams, be well behaved, respectful, and self-motivated, but sometimes we just have to meet them where they are. We have to be a bit of fun too. I think parents often forget that. They are so worried about being a good parent that they forget to have a bit of craic with their child. And we all need a bit of fun from time to time. We can all be a little world weary with everything that is going on.

But if you meet your child where they are at, and just laugh with them, it can be healing. We all found our way in the world. Even those light-bulb-stealing-criminals found the light... just not the festive, coloured variety.