Oh Good God, I’ve been Doing it All Wrong

“I think I’ve fucked my kids up”

Photo by Lacie Cueto on Unsplash

This week I’ve been late to the Dr. Dan Siegel party. Alongside his long-time collaborator Dr. Tina Payne Bryson, Siegel’s teachings have become a byword for neuroscience-backed parenting. I’ve spoken about my own personal overwhelm after being sent home with a baby with close to zero idea of how the hell to look after the new love of my life. I remember wondering how it was possible that an actual real-life child would be the first guinea pig for my parenting skills. All that time spent on GCSE trigonometry for precisely zilch IRL. But when it comes to the most important job I’ll ever have? No exams, no coursework, no practical test. No revision, in fact I wasn’t even sure what the set texts were. How was I allowed to take my baby home while I was so ill-prepared and unqualified to care for him?

What Dan and Tina’s books (in this case in particular, The Whole Brain Child) offer left brain thinkers like me is an extremely accessible instruction manual on the mechanics of the mind. Aside from penny drop moments vis a vis hands-on-parenting, I’ve also enjoyed the insight it has offered me into my own grey matter. From how we encode memories to the relationship between the lizard and mammalian areas of the brain, it’s full of the kind of linguistic logic that triggers feelings of blissful contentment in both body and soul for a nerd like me.

To add some context, I was recommended the book by an educational psychologist who I trust and admire. She has all the credentials and face to face smarts that engender respect and authority. And yet. Within minutes of finishing the book, I found myself at the Google search bar, entering the esteemed author’s name and asking for counter arguments to his main positions.

Having a level of healthy cynicism and doubt is, in my mind, sensible in this space. Hundreds of thousands of titles have been published to serve clueless parents like me since parenting manuals first began to boom. Clearly, no-one’s nailed the topic. The fact that the one true parenting Bible has yet to be released, suggests that it quite possibly will never exist.