Colman Noctor: Focus on the child in front of you, not the parenting rulebook 

I regularly recommend that parents ‘step back’, ‘don’t put too much pressure on their children’, and ‘trust them to find their own way’. Picture: iStock

Parents are often mystified by how their children can be so different despite growing up in the same household. Though no two children have precisely the same childhood, their bewilderment is understandable. How can one child walk into a room and make friends immediately, while their sibling always hangs back? Why is one a natural athlete while another struggles with sport? How does one seem to sail through school with relatively little effort, while another works twice as hard for half the result?

Part of the answer is that children are not blank slates. They arrive in the world with different temperaments, abilities, vulnerabilities, and dispositions, all of which interact differently with their environment.

Children’s uniqueness presents one of the great challenges of giving parenting advice, because parenting is not a standard experience.

I regularly recommend that parents ‘step back’, ‘don’t put too much pressure on their children’, and ‘trust them to find their own way’. It’s advice I can stand over. But I have become increasingly aware that such phrases sound very different depending on the child in question.

Some children seem to move through childhood relatively easily. They generally manage at school, are picked for teams, and are sought out by other children.

The world seems to meet them halfway.

Others may excel at sport but struggle academically or thrive at schoolwork yet find it difficult to make friends.

And for some, childhood can involve a repeated struggle to find somewhere they feel they belong.

Over the coming weeks, I will explore different parenting experiences across three areas of childhood: education, sport, and friendship. I want to consider parenting the child for whom learning comes relatively easily, alongside parenting the child who works enormously hard for modest results; the naturally athletic child alongside the child who struggles to find their place in sport; and the socially confident child who makes friends wherever they go, alongside the child for whom friendships, parties, and social groups can be complicated and painful.

The child inevitably shapes our parenting experience. Take education, for example. One parent attends a parent-teacher meeting and is told that their child is bright, engaged, and doing very well. They leave reassured that, at least academically, their child will probably be OK.

Another parent is given a tour of their child’s difficulties, hearing that they are behind in reading, maths is a struggle, and concentration is difficult. Their conversations focus on assessments, learning support, and accommodations.

Or consider a typical Saturday morning hurling match. One parent delights in watching their child start the match, score a goal, and come off the pitch buzzing. They chat happily with other parents on the touchline, while watching their child excel at what they love.

Ten yards away, another parent isn’t really watching the match anymore. They are watching the coach because their child is on the bench again. Another substitution is made, and other children from a younger age group get on the field while their child waits. The drive home is filled with questions like, “Why didn’t I get on?”, “Why does he play even though he never trains?”, or “Am I that rubbish?”.

Both parents are watching the same game, yet psychologically are inhabiting entirely different worlds.

Then there is friendship. Few things reassure parents more than knowing their child has found their people. Friends call at their door, birthday invitations arrive, and there are sleepovers and plans for the weekend. Few things hurt as much as watching your child desperately want these things but not have them. This is perhaps one of the most helpless parenting experiences. You can arrange learning support or search for another sports club, but ultimately, you cannot make another child choose yours.

Need for compassion

It’s all too easy to judge other parents through the lens of our experience and beliefs, but doing so ignores the complexity of raising children, each of whom comes into the world with their own needs and wants.

The parent who strongly advocates homework may have a child who completes it independently in 20 minutes. Another parent may have a nine-year-old who cries over worksheets for two hours every evening.

The parent who strongly believes in competition and elite sporting pathways may have a child who is thriving within that system. Another parent may be watching a child who loves sport start to realise there is no place for them in it.

The parent who advises others not to interfere in children’s friendships may have a teenager whose social life has always looked after itself.

While these confident assertions on how other parents should handle homework, sport, or teenage friendships are not wrong, we perhaps should occasionally ask ourselves: ‘Would I feel quite as strongly about this if I were parenting their child?’

The same compassion needs to extend to ourselves.

Parents of children who struggle often wonder what they are doing wrong. They watch other families seemingly glide through childhood milestones and wonder why everything feels more complicated in their house.

Social media hasn’t helped. As we constantly see medals, certificates, and team victories, childhood can start to look like a succession of achievements and happy moments.

We rarely see the journey home after another week on the bench. The child crying at the kitchen table, overwhelmed by homework. Or the teenager in their room on a Saturday night, pretending they didn’t want to go anyway.

But parents of children who are thriving have important work to do too if they want their child to be well-rounded.

The sporty child needs to learn humility and how to include the weaker players. The academically gifted child needs to understand that their achievements do not define who they are. And the socially successful child needs to learn kindness and notice the person standing outside the group. And their parents need to recognise that what comes easily to their child may be extraordinarily difficult for someone else.

We should also remember that children’s development rarely follows a predictable path. The child who sails through primary school may struggle academically in secondary school. The child who dominates in under-10 sport may find things more difficult when others catch up physically. The quiet 13-year-old may become a socially confident 18-year-old.

Over the next three weeks, I will explore the worlds of education, sport, and friendship separately: from the parents sitting at kitchen tables, trying to explain fractions for the fourth time, to those standing on the sidelines, hoping their child gets five minutes, and to those lying awake, wondering why their teenager wasn’t invited to another party.

Parental guidance

The uncomfortable truth at the centre of the series is that while we have significant influence over our children’s lives, we have considerably less control than modern parenting culture suggests.

Psychologist Dr Russell Barkley has captured this through the observation that parents are better thought of as shepherds than engineers.

An engineer builds towards a predetermined outcome, but a shepherd guides.

We can provide opportunities, encouragement, boundaries, and love. We can advocate when necessary and step back when appropriate. How we parent matters enormously. But we cannot guarantee academic ability, sporting talent, or popularity.

And a child struggling in one of these areas should not automatically be taken as evidence of parental failure, any more than a child excelling in them should be taken as evidence of parenting success.

We don’t get to choose the child we parent. We only get to discover, understand, and guide them.

Perhaps recognising that we are not all experiencing the same version of parenting might make us a little slower to judge other parents, a little gentler with ourselves, and a little more curious about what life feels like for the child standing in front of us.

• Dr Colman Noctor is a child psychotherapist