learning to parent oneself

The skilled and respected Seattle therapist Hal Abbott told me that  "Adulthood is learning to parent oneself." He explained that learning to love oneself is learning how to parent oneself.  Which makes perfect sense, since no one knows us better than we do. We all have experiences from childhood in which we were left wanting something more or different from our parents. We may not be able to undo the past, but from here on out, we can make up for what we did not get. No one can be more loving and provide exactly what we need when we need it than ourselves.

Hal explained that we adopted two extreme parenting strategies based on our own parents, and have swung from one end of the pendulum to the other doing our best to care for ourselves:     The Critical/ Strict Parent VS The Lax Parent

The Overly Critical / Strict Parent , or Inner Critic, keeps us focused on our goals and achieving milestones. They want us to be a success, and to be a success we must do things [Quantitative Realm]. The Critical Parent keeps us dreaming and wanting more. They provide structure, but their boundaries are too rigid. If the child gets a "C" on a test, the Critical Parent tells us we "should" do better. The child comes back with a "B," and they point out we could have gotten a "B+." When the child comes back excited because we raised our grade from a "C" to an "A," they point out that it is not an "A+."
The Critical Parent is always looking to the Future for what to strive for next, or the Past to point out how we messed up and should have done it better or faster. The Critical Parent is not focused on the present. They expect perfection, are never satisfied, will never praise and can always find something to criticize about. The Critical/ Strict Parent's favorite word is "should," they are filled with judgements and they use anxiety to drive us.
The recent Chicago Bulls documentary The Last Dance allows us to hear which parent drove Michael Jordan to be arguably the best player ever. His internal and external Critical voice pushed him and his teammates to be at the height of their mental and physical abilities. And though he was respected by all of his teammates, the documentary hints at what is just under the surface: he was not liked by nearly any of them.

The Lax Parent is always in the present moment. Though they mean well, and want to please the child, they are short-cited and end up not doing what is in the child’s long-term best interests. A child needs structure, boundaries and limits. The Lax Parent lets the child set the rules. A Lax Parent asks the child what they want for dinner, and when the child says, candy, they let them eat candy for dinner. This is totally fine on a rare occasion; especially after a tough day. But every night the child says they want candy for dinner, and every night the Lax Parent serves them candy. This is not healthy. The child does not know what is in their best interests, and the Lax Parent puts the child’s short-term wants over their long-term needs.
The Lax Parent is the parent that gives a child a trophy for 8th place in a race of 8 kids. They do not empower the child to grow (up) because they are too in the present moment, unintentionally coddle, support hopelessness, depression and lack of motivation. The Lax Parent is not preparing the child to for resilience and becoming an independent young adult. 

There are strengths and weaknesses to both parenting styles. But when the Strict Parent pushes too much without acknowledgment or praise, we all eventually give up.

"Why bother!? No matter how hard I work, you will never be satisfied! It is never good enough for you. I quit!"

This is when the pendulum swings to the opposite end. We are Hopeless and Defeated. The Lax Parent asks what is wrong, and we respond, "They are not fair! It's never good enough for them!" The Lax Parent calms us down and reassures us that we are perfect just the way we are, and we never have to listen to the Critical Parent again. Whatever we do is great; even when we do nothing. Unfortunately, somewhere inside of us we know this is not true...

As Hal explained to me, the Solution lies somewhere between the two extremes. We must learn to not allow the pendulum to swing too far in one direction because it will inevitably result in the opposite parent taking over.

The SOLUTION:
Acknowledge and Praise all our Wins along the way:
"Win" = Doing whatever is the more difficult thing to do.

If we acknowledge and praise ourselves for doing the harder thing, then we are just being fair. If we knew our friend was struggling to do something, and then proudly explained that they finally were brave enough to do the harder thing, we would not say to them, "Took you long enough! Why didn't you do it last week?!" We would praise them. We would know that acknowledgement and praise was the only fair thing to do.

The win for the person who is run by the Critical Voice is to Praise oneself. Certainly it is much easier for the Critical Parent to criticize than to say, "I am proud of you."

The win for the person who has given up and is run by the Lax Parent is to get back on track with the identified goals (aka. What we know we "should" be doing: getting back into a routine, catching up on work/ laundry, exercising more, going to bed earlier, waking up earlier, eating healthier, watching less TV, etc.).

Building and Maintaining Momentum:
We have believed that the strict standards and harsh judgements of the Critical Parent were the only way for us to stay motivated and accomplish our goals. The problem is that the momentum of the Critical Parent drives us downward over time until we eventually become hopeless and give up. This may take years for it to happen to us, like Michael Jordan. But, we all eventually quit in defeat and despair.

To break the cycle, and prevent the pendulum from going too far, we must praise ourselves for our successes along the way. This is apparently what Michael Jordan did not do for himself or his teammates. He made them great, but forgot to praise himself and others along the way for their hard work.

Acknowledging and praising our wins creates a positive momentum that is based on fairness (not kindness or arrogance). Maintaining a positive momentum that acknowledges and praises when we do the harder thing is the only way to prevent the default momentum of our Critical Parent from kicking in.