[ 🤟🏼 ] What Advice Do You Have for Soon-to-Be Parents?
Most Mondays, we revisit one of the listener questions we’ve answered in a previous episode. It’s been edited for clarity & brevity.QUESTION
from Tyler:
We have worked hard in the last four years on our mindset and the five factors, and my wife is now pregnant with our first baby girl.
We are so excited about raising her with a focus on health, vitality, and mindset. Do you have any advice, books, or resources for parenting with these things in mind?
ANSWER
BEN: Congratulations on your upcoming daughter, Tyler. I'll make this one short: read Hunt, Gather, Parent.
I listened to it with Heather in our sauna. It was really cool to do that together. If you listen to this podcast, it'll very much resonate with you.
PATRICK: I'll offer one recommendation. It's something I've been thinking a lot about in terms of journaling.
One thing I think is a really valuable journaling exercise, especially for parents — and certainly not when your baby's tiny, Tyler, but as they start to get older and develop a personality and test you in ways that only kids can — is this:
Journal about why certain things trigger you.
When you force yourself to think about a situation where you weren’t happy with how you handled things, ask yourself: What was really going on? Why did I react that way? What was the context? What happened before that?
To me, good parenting is being the adult in the situation.
Being the adult means having more control over your emotions and reactions than the other person. A really good parent is one who can consistently model appropriate responses to whatever stimuli or situations arise.
So, being able to regularly reflect and say, "Okay, that time I got upset or yelled, what was going on?" is crucial. The more you do this, the better you can prepare for the next time a similar situation occurs.
Repeatedly asking yourself, "Why did I respond that way? What was going on?" I've found it to be incredibly useful and valuable as it relates to being a parent.
BEN: I like that a lot.
Here's another quick one: "This too shall pass."
You know, parenting is a very emotional experience. You can get incredibly frustrated, but remember — it will pass. Take a moment to chill.
As you said, understand your triggers so you can respond, not react.
If we do that as parents — and I think the people who listen to this podcast take pride in how they respond to challenging situations — we'll have a leg up.
Parenting is a challenging situation.
So, work on responding, not reacting. Reactions are built into you — they're going to happen. If someone throws a baseball at you, you're going to flinch. Reactions are natural.
But how you respond to the person who threw the baseball at your head is up to you. That's what we can control.
You might get frustrated, but do you express it appropriately?