Fortunately, parenting is not a one-size-fits-all. What works for a mum may not work for another, or her children. It’s important to get comfortable with your innate parenting style. If you’re always worrying (am I doing it right?), it could hinder your ability to parent effectively. However, if you trust yourself as a parent, you could focus on what’s best for you and your child.

 

What’s more, feeling secure about your own style actually makes you a better parent — you’re not constantly ‘trying on’ other mums’ methods, which could confuse your kids. When you are confident and reliable in your parenting style, your child knows what’s expected of them, and they learn to trust you and feel safe.

 

Check out these steps to get comfortable with your particular parenting style and make the most out of it.

 

 

Don’t compare!

 

Other people are our worst enemy when it comes to destroying our instincts. When a friend would say, “You use wipes instead of washcloths?” and “How could you not feed on demand?” You would probably second-guess everything you did. Try to tune out those unsolicited opinions. When it comes to how your child adapts and copes, and her unique emotional and physical needs, you are the expert. And when you go with what you know is right for your child, it would make you the best possible parent.

 

A glimpse of others’ parenting style which you get while you’re in the park or in the grocery store is such a limited view of what a parent is like overall. The mum who is really good at making up fun games may be terrible at handling tantrums. There’s just no such thing as a perfect mum. Thus, stop comparing your parenting style with others’ because you are not in the race, you don’t have to compete. You may seek opinion or advice from other experienced mothers, but you don’t have to follow them exactly.

 

 

 

Track the heredity of your parenting style

 

No matter how hard you try to forge your own unique path as a mum, there’s a good chance you are raising your children the same way your parents raised you — for better and worse. When you feel a little pain in your stomach because you have triggered a bad memory from growing up, it’s a good sign that maybe this is a behaviour you don’t want to pass on to your children. One of the great gifts you get from being a parent, though, is the chance to right the wrongs from your childhood.

 

You spend 18 or more years in your parents’ home, so their ways become normal for you. But if it doesn’t feel right, you can make new rules. You could also go overboard compensating for your parents’ missteps. To tap into whether your style is working, ask yourself, “Are my children responding to me the way I want? If not, examine your choices in certain situations and tweak them to meet your children’s needs and your own.

 

 

 

Embrace your parenting style

 

It’s not often that your children would tell you what a great job you are doing at being their mum. You may record your parenting triumphs and wisdom in a log. You might write, “When I lower my voice, it diffuses my child’s tantrums.” It gives you confidence because you are not only tracking successes but also making an effort to improve — and both are signs of a good parent. Add to this journal the compliments from teachers and other parents that have made you feel good about your parenting style. Don’t forget to also record the delicious things your child tells you, such as “Mummy, I love you the best.”

 

 

 

Know that your child is unique

 

Children are not robots that you could programme. Children are born with different temperaments that determine how easy or challenging they could be brought up by their parents. And since the exquisite skill of good parenting is meeting your child’s specific needs, no one is better equipped than you are — whatever your style — to parent your child. For instance, a usually easygoing mum might have to change her parenting style to a more rigid one, if her child has hyperactivity disorder — from being spontaneous to sticking to a schedule, as it could make her child’s life more serene.

 

Yes, you are the mum, but parenting is always a give-and-take proposition. Researchers have recently discovered that even in the newborn period, the baby is likely to have more impact on the mother than they once thought. Apparently, babies (by communicating through cries and other signals) influence not only Mum’s actions (getting her to change a diaper, for example) but also her brain, actually stimulating new neurons, enhancing existing ones, and prepping her to become the particular kind of parent that child would need.

 

 

 

Stick to your instinct

 

Nobody knows your child better than you do — not your paediatrician, your neighbour, your mother-in-law, or some guru on TV. Often, women devalue themselves as mums when they don’t trust their own instincts.

 

You ought to believe that mummy-vision you get when your baby is born. Your instinct, which is where your parenting style is formed, is almost always right for your child. And when you start listening to your heart, you would make peace with your parenting style.