“I feel so bad that he’s not on a schedule yet!” new mom Erin confessed about her 8-week-old in our therapy session. She had been generally adjusting well to motherhood, but a glance at Instagram threw her for a loop. After 8 weeks of following his cues, she was feeling guilty for not knowing about “wake windows,” newborn “playtime” and feeding schedules. She was convinced that she was setting him up for failure or that she had already failed him. She followed an account that promised to provide her with an ideal newborn schedule for him. And just like that, what had once been a space for funny reels and animal videos became an endless pit of parenting advice.
When someone tells you in 90 seconds or less how to be a “better” parent, of course you want to listen! We are hardwired to want to do what is best for our children. From parenting professionals with tips for tantrums to moms “just like us” hawking the “perfect” schedule to fix all your woes, as soon as parents open social media, we are bombarded with ways to parent more peacefully, more gently, more aesthetically. In a word: better.
And the more we consume, the more the algorithm feeds us, showing us all the possible parenting challenges we may encounter, even ones we’ve never considered. Social media can leave us feeling insufficient and in need of a solution to a problem that we may not even have. So how do we cut through the noise and focus on what matters to us?
Our Top 5 Ways to Parent with More Ease in the Age of Instagram
Solidify your parenting values
When everything is important, nothing is. Social media bombards us with a myriad of things we are supposed to worry about. Identifying your parenting values becomes your trailhead, making it easier to make parenting decisions and filter out advice that doesn’t resonate with you.
Start by asking yourself questions like:
- What matters to me as a parent?
- What do I want my children to learn from me?
A values questionnaire like this one can help.
Cleanse Your Feed
If you walk away from social media questioning your parenting, how might the accounts you’re following stoke self-doubt? Even if you followed with good intentions, perhaps that parenting page, influencer, coach, friend or even therapist is not helping you tune into your sense of what works for you and your family. If it isn’t helping you, it’s OK to unfollow, block or ignore.
Identify What Problem You’re Trying to Solve Before Looking at the Solutions
There’s nothing wrong with turning to others to support us in the challenges of parenting; we were meant to parent in community. But before diving headlong into #momstagram, ask yourself: what problem am I trying to solve? Perhaps it’s better answered by your pediatrician or a family member, or maybe the problem is rooted in parental anxiety that would benefit from meeting with a therapist. The internet has infinite solutions out there, but they may not be the right ones for you.
Identify When You Are Being “Sold” a Problem So You Can Pay For a Solution
So much social media content is designed to get us to buy into a program. We have so many resources at our fingertips and influencers need to lure us in a big way. They present the big problem, tease a solution and then encourage you to sign up for their program for even more content. There’s nothing wrong with seeking or providing solutions, but be aware of this trap.
Stop Scrolling and Get Present With Yourself and With Your Kids.
Guess who knows your kid better than any expert or influencer ever could? You. Being present with your kids is a powerful tool for understanding who they are and what makes them tick. Not only can this help you know how to parent them, but also to identify if and where you might need more support in parenting them.
It’s great to live in a world with easy access to so much information, but sometimes more is not better. With parental stress at an all-time high, social media can so easily stoke our anxiety and prey on our best intentions. Being comfortable with not having all the answers and not parenting “perfectly” will get you a lot farther in improving your parental confidence than any social media account. So put the phone down and trust yourself: You’ve got this!
Dr. Emma Basch is a licensed clinical psychologist based in Washington, D.C. She is the founder and director of Dr. Emma Basch & Associates, a group practice specializing in the mental health needs of women and families. Dr. Jillian Neill is a licensed psychologist based in North Carolina and a therapist at Dr. Emma Basch & Associates. She specializes in working with parents and aspiring parents on the challenges of creating and growing thriving families.
Liam McCrickard holds a B.A. in creative and professional writing from Goucher College. He is former assistant editor at Washington Parent. He works as a freelance designer, writer and editor of tabletop role-playing games.
