Thank you Parents

Over the past few days, I  was thinking about home learning and the super human effort you must all be putting in by this stage to keep everything ticking over in our lock-down worlds at the moment. It struck me that more than ever we are bombarded with Social Media Super Parents who are always smiling, always making  perfect decisions and generally doing a much better you than you or me.

Facilitating home learning for your child or children is not easy, But whilst you are working from home yourself, cooking meals, cleaning the house, washing your hands incessantly and making sure everyone else is, settling an argument over who drank all the milk, or who put the empty cornflakes box back in the cupboard,it is practically impossible. Some Super Parents even manage to bake a perfectly decorated chocolate cake ,mow the lawn and feed the cat, as well as have all home learning activities completed before noon!

It's not like that in reality. Is it? 

It was then I decided if see if super parents really existed, or was it just a social media phenomenon as  believe me like you I have seen many of them who continually make me feel that I'm not as good as them. So I decided to google "Super Parents"!

I came across this article which I think you will find interesting.

 Stacy Kaiser, psychotherapist, parenting expert and author of “How To Be A Grown Up”

I am a parent and I talk to a lot of parents. After relationship issues and personal growth, parenting is the next biggest topic that I get asked about. That’s simply because being a parent isn’t easy. Our kids don’t come with instruction manuals and we aren’t always equipped with the right tools, ideas or patience to manage them. Add to it that so many of us want to be “super parents”! You know, a super mom, super dad, super spouse, super employee — and ideally all of those rolled into one!

Although most of us claim to know that this superior level is impossible to achieve (yes, I said impossible!) most of us still cling to the idea of trying to strive for some level of perfection. We want to get it right. We don’t want to mess up our kids. We want to do better than our parents did – even if they weren’t awful.

This desire to be fabulous and to hit it out of the parental park leads to development of high expectations – and usually unrealistic ones! We expect ourselves to be top notch, to make few mistakes and to raise near perfect kids. We even expect our partners to meet our standards. One might say — “I push myself because it makes me work harder” or “high expectations create higher results” — not true. Parents who expect too much from themselves are typically too hard on themselves and end up feeling drained and inadequate. These negative feelings ultimately impact our view of ourselves and our ability to be calm, flexible and happy parents — and guess what? A happy parent is a good one!

So… let’s talk about being a “good parent” and not a “super parent”. A truly “good parent” is not a perfect one or a super one. A “good parent” allows room for error and fatigue, they accept their imperfections and role model to their children that trying your best is important – and that no one needs to be perfect because no one CAN be perfect.

This of course was written pre-CoVid-19. How much more difficult are things for us all now?

As a School staff, we really appreciate all your efforts at this difficult time. We do not expect "super parenting". No one is ticking off a list for every piece of work assigned on seesaw. If we check in with you it is to make sure everything is okay, that you don't have log in or password problems. Please continue being "good parents" structuring your child's day as best you can in your own family circumstances, making time for a bit of school work, exercise,a  prayer, reading, gardening, appreciating the wonderful world we live in, and fun. 

 Have a great weekend and take care and stay safe.

Seamus Dorrian

Principal