Remember The Happy Moments

Being a parent is generally extremely difficult. When kids are young, they don’t understand, they don’t sleep, and they can’t easily communicate. When kids are older, they understand but will choose not to listen and may rebel. As a human being, it’s natural for these situations to frustrate you and really test your patience.

If you’re a new parent, or soon to be parent, then you may not have experienced all of these lows yet. You’re preparing to enter a very different world than what you’ve lived through until now with no kids. A baby and child will not always be easy, and there may be times that you’ll question your decision. This is perfectly normal.

The highs are what keep you going through the lows of parenting.

In order to make it through the hardest times of being a parent, you need to remember those happy moments. Over time, this will naturally occur that you focus on the good parts of parenting. However, in the moment you generally will think it can not get any worse. It’s at moments like this that you have to remember the highs of parenting.

Remember that younger children aren’t trying to make you mad or frustrated on purpose. They simply have not yet learned how to effectively communicate with you how they’re feeling, and why they’re upset. As a parent, it’s your responsibility to work on helping them to learn those skills. It will take a lot of time and patience, but the earlier they learn good communication skills, the sooner they can start to better communicate with you.

Even with communication skills, kids will still do their own things a lot of the time. They will frustrate you - it’s an invariable part of parenting. Don’t give up just because you’re in a low period of parenting. Remember the happy moments that you’ve had previously. The happy moments will continue to push you and help you through the lowest times of parenting (which will come).

If you’re sitting in the hospital looking at your beautiful baby sleeping, keep that memory close by for the long nights ahead of you. If your baby has finally slept through the night, keep that in mind when they start waking up again. If your child has just read their first word, remember that when they refuse to do homework. If your child succeeds in something they’ve been working on for many months, remember that when they refuse to stop using their phone every minute of the day.

There are thousands of ways that your child can make you happy, and many more that they can make you mad. Remember those happy moments when the sad and frustrating moments will invariably come. Love your child the best you can, even in those hard times. If you're in a happy moment now, do everything you can to hold on to that feeling for a later time when you'll need to use that memory to help you through.