DR ANDREW WAKE is a child and adolescent psychiatrist with extensive experience in both public and private practice. He has worked in a range of settings, from leafy suburbs to rural townships and remote Aboriginal communities. He has lectured at the University of Melbourne, and also undertaken numerous speaking engagements at mental health clinics, schools and child protection units on topics such as parenting, child development, adolescent sexuality and the effects of childhood trauma. He lives in Melbourne with his wife and three children. This is his first book.
THE
‘GOOD
ENOUGH’
PARENT
Copyright © Andrew Wake 2012, 2019
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the author.
Designed and typeset by Caz Brown
Typeset in 11pt Sabon
Digital distribution: Ebook Alchemy
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Wake, Andrew P.
The ‘good enough’ parent: how to provide for your child’s social and emotional development
ISBN 978 0 646 57404 2 (pbk)
ISBN 978 1 921 99987 1 (ePub)
Includes bibliographical references.
Parenting. Child development.
649.1
For children
INTRODUCTION
A father I once met at a child’s birthday party said to me, ‘It’s hard to know what to do sometimes; if only kids came with an instruction manual.’ He was joking, of course, but after years working as a child and family psychiatrist, and my own experiences as a father of three, I realised how useful it would be if parents better understood the developmental influences on their children’s behaviour, so I sat down to write this book.
This book is different to the many parenting books out there that attempt to teach you how to ‘manage’ your child, though this one still contains plenty of case studies and useful strategies. Instead, my aim is twofold; firstly, to help you understand how children’s early experiences and their amazing brains work together to influence their social and emotional development, and secondly, to explain what you can do to provide what children need for healthy development.
The ‘Good Enough’ Parent is not meant to be a textbook of child and adolescent development, either. The theoretical ideas in it simply provide the background to the clinical work I do with parents, teachers, child protection workers and others who have children in their care. Although written with parents in mind, it would be a useful resource for any person who works with children.
The way I see it, when it comes to your child, you and your partner are the experts. You know their temperament, their character, the resources your family has, and so on. I’m not here to tell you how to raise your child, but to give you the background knowledge that will allow you to devise strategies that will work for you. This is important, because there is nothing like parenting to make us doubt that we are ‘good enough’.
Every day I see parents crippled by self-doubt: ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ ‘Is it my fault that he’s like this?’ ‘Please tell me what to do.’ Confidence is important when we are responsible for children. Most of us can more or less change nappies, make dinners, clean the house, and sing nursery rhymes – providing for a child’s physical and intellectual needs is the easy part – but juggling their social and emotional needs (along with our own) is the great challenge. Yet, as with our children, our confidence can only grow if we are responsible for making decisions, taking risks and putting in the hard work to make them happen. This book is the first step to developing your confidence.
In Part 1, I explore child development from the point of view of attachment (the mother–infant bond) and its effects on your child’s emotions, behaviour and relationships. In many ways, this is our children’s core need: to get enough of us. But this ‘getting enough’ must be balanced with its opposite: ‘missing out enough’. Although children need to be securely with us, they also need to separate from us, and in Chapter 2 I explain how important it is for parents to allow their children to miss out – how, in some ways, parenting can be considered the ‘gradual disappointment of children’. I then consider the loss and grief associated with children’s perception that they are missing out, and their rage at unmet expectations.
In Part 2, I look at what we can do as parents to support the development of our children’s emotional understanding and regulation, and their skills for healthy relating to others. As adults, we know too well that learning involves trial and error, and very often the discomfort of failure. Children will always experience suffering as they develop (some more than others) and it is difficult to watch this. Some parents find it harder than others to see their children fail, lose, miss out or be left out – particularly if they have unresolved, painful experiences from their own childhood. But if we protect children from the suffering that comes with growing up, we stunt their growth and may even give them the unconscious message that we don’t think they can cope. We need to understand them, provide for them, support them and believe in them; but we cannot grow up for them.
My aim is to help you see yourself as a ‘good enough’ parent, rather than tie yourself in knots trying to be a ‘super’ parent. From this confidence will flow strategies that will best help your children grow into strong, calm and connected young men and women.
Of course, understanding what to do is important, but the really hard bit is the doing. It takes bravery and courage to change. It may be encouraging to know that many have gone before you (including the writer), and you are not alone in desiring change in your family’s life. And when you find it difficult, know too that you are not alone. I have had the privilege of witnessing and participating in many parents’ struggles and successes as they seek to help their children, and I wish to acknowledge the inspiration they have been to me. I wish you all the best as you work towards supporting your child to become the best person they can be.
Andrew WakeMarch, 2012
Note: Families come in many configurations, though for the sake of brevity, I’ve written this book as if each child has two biological parents of different gender. Whether you are a single parent, a relative who is effectively a parental figure, a permanent carer, a partner of a biological parent, or an adoptive parent, you are an important attachment and therefore parental figure to your child.
Also, the case studies in this book are not individual ones disguised with a name change – they are ‘compilations’ based on the numerous children and families I have seen over the past twelve years.
PART 1
WHAT YOU
NEED TO KNOW
CHAPTER 1
ATTACHMENT:GETTING ENOUGH
Around 200 million years ago, reptiles were among the most advanced animals on earth, and humans were nowhere to be seen. Reptile brains were relatively simple, and had perfected all the bits and pieces necessary for survival. There was no need for language, planning, wondering, or any of the other remarkable cognitive skills we humans have, so their brains were also quite small.
Then something remarkable happened. One of our reptile ancestors began to develop a new part of their brain that improved the chances of their offspring developing into an adult. No longer