046 Worry and Regret in Parenting with Dr. Julie Hanks
Are we destined to worry about our kids? It seems so with an never ending diet about an ongoing pandemic, bullying, pornography, mental health, social media etc etc that we are doomed to sit in worry about our kids.
How about all those mistakes we have made in the past? What if we had handled things differently? What if we had been a better parent? Maybe things would have had a better outcome and it's all our fault? Living in regret and ruminating about the past also seem like a thing as a parent.
Worry and regret are two sides of the same coin. Worry is forward focused, regret is living in the past.The good news is we don't have to park our brain in either of these spaces. It takes a lot of effort but Dr. Julie Hanks gives some valuable tools to help us live in the present and focus on our relationships.
Regret and worry steal us of our energy and can cause us to parent out of fear and lack of clarity. Nobody makes good decisions out of fear. Putting the energy we waste with regret and worry into actual connection and building a relationship is key.