The Moment Every Parent Knows...

The Moment Every Parent Knows...
At some point, every parent has stood in a doorway at night watching their child sleep and thought: 'Am I doing this right?' Not the Instagram version of parenting. Not the highlight reel. The real one. The messy, loud, exhausting, beautiful responsibility of shaping a human being while still trying to figure yourself out. Parenting isn’t a role you master. It’s a relationship you grow into.

The Problem. Modern Parenting Is Louder Than Ever
Today’s parents are navigating more noise than any generation before them. Advice floods every screen. Experts contradict each other. Social media turns ordinary family moments into silent competitions. And beneath it all runs a constant pressure to optimise childhood...the right school, the right activities, the right milestones, the right emotional vocabulary. The result? Many parents aren’t failing. They’re overloaded. Overthinking replaces instinct. Comparison replaces confidence. And in trying to do everything “correctly,” we risk missing the simple truth: children don’t need perfect parents. They need present ones.

The Insight? Children Grow Through Connection, Not Perfection
Research across child development consistently points to one stabilising factor: secure connection. Children thrive when they feel seen, safe, and emotionally anchored. Not because every decision is flawless, but because the relationship is reliable. They don’t measure parenting by curated routines. They measure it by everyday signals:
Did you listen when I talked?
Did you stay calm when I made a mistake?
Did I feel safe coming to you?

Connection isn’t built in grand gestures. It’s built in micro-moments: eye contact, shared laughter, repaired conflicts, predictable presence. Parenting is less about controlling outcomes and more about modelling resilience, empathy, and emotional repair.

The Solution. Shift From Performance to Presence
A powerful shift happens when parents stop asking: “Am I doing this right?” and start asking: “Am I showing up consistently?”Practical ways to anchor parenting in presence:
*Create daily rituals: small predictable moments (bedtime talks, car conversations, shared meals) that signal stability.
*Repair quickly after conflict: children learn emotional intelligence not from the absence of mistakes, but from witnessing reconciliation.
*Name emotions openly: this normalises feelings and teaches regulation.
*Protect attention: even 10 undistracted minutes can outweigh hours of half-presence.
Consistency beats intensity. Children don’t need extraordinary parents. They need emotionally available ones.

The Takeaway. Parenting Is a Long Conversation
Parenting is not a test you pass or fail. It’s an evolving conversation between generations. You are not raising a perfect child. You are raising a future adult who will remember how it felt to grow beside you. And what children carry into adulthood isn’t a flawless childhood. It’s the memory of being loved in an environment where mistakes were survivable and connection was stronger than pressure. If parents focus less on performance and more on relationship, the rest tends to organise itself. Because at its core, parenting is not about control. It’s about trust.

Now that you're read the above, why not commit to a fuller understanding and pick up a copy of LJ Jones fabulous new book 'Become The Parent you Needed' which we're launching on Sunday coming...in Bangkok no less. An exotic location for an enthralling book.

-Conor MacGiolla Bhuí, MSc ©January 2026.