Self-care for parents: The role of self-talk

Self-care was a hot topic before COVID-19.  Now, amidst everything else we’re being asked to manage at this moment we’re also being asked to focus on “self-care.”  For many of us, this becomes another thing we know we should do but can’t figure out how to fit into our day. It becomes another thing on the list of things we didn’t get quite right.  And that, right there – that way of thinking about how we blew it at self-care, is really where the self-care needs to start.

Enter self-talk.

Self-talk is your inner voice, the one that’s with you from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep.  Your inner voice may sound like a cheerleader:  praising you for a job well done, encouraging you when things get hard, or reassuring and supporting you when things don’t go quite right.  For many people, though, that inner voice sounds a lot more like a bully: second-guessing your role when things go well, cutting you down when the going gets tough or reaffirming your worst fears about yourself when things go wrong.  As it turns out, we humans have a penchant for negative self-talk.  This is even more so the case for people who struggle with anxiety or depression.

Self-talk is a fundamental part of any self-care routine.  I’m not talking about Stuart Smalley self-talk, where you look into a mirror and tell yourself that you’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and (doggone it) people like you – although I would submit that all of that is absolutely true.

I’m talking about what you say to yourself over the course of the day.

• When your daughter starts the day in a bad mood and breakfast goes sideways, fast, that inner voice might say something like, “You really blew that one. I bet most mothers would have known how to handle that moment better.”
• When you spend a little extra time helping your kids get settled into distance learning for the morning, and you find you’re 10 minutes late to a Zoom call, your inner voice might say something like, “Great. Everyone sees you’re late.  They’re all parents and they got here on time.”
• When your daughter is having a tough time with some friends and she won’t let you in or talk with you about it, your inner voice might say something like, “I guess she doesn’t see me as someone she can talk to. I must have done something wrong.”

That’s the sound of your inner bully.  You may have justifications for why you, specifically, are in a position to say these unkind things to yourself, but I assure you:  psychologically speaking, your inner bully serves no purpose. It is purely harmful. It does a number on your self-esteem, blows your confidence, undercuts your sense of yourself as someone who is capable and powerful, shrinks your motivation, your determination... the list goes on.  Essentially, your inner bully adds zero value but does cause serious psychological, emotional, and cognitive damage.

Now, if your inner voice was more friend than foe – if you spoke to yourself the way you would actually speak to a friend in any of these circumstances – it might sound something like this:

• “My daughter’s having a rough morning. I wish I had handled that differently.  I’m going to give us both a few minutes to calm down, and then I’ll bring her some cocoa/tea/water/juice, apologize to her for my role in this morning’s blowout, and see if she could use someone to talk to.  That way I can help her right the morning and do some good old-fashioned modeling, too.”
• “I am so glad I got my kids settled in so I can focus for the rest of the morning. I’ll ask one of my colleagues to catch me up on anything I missed in those first few minutes.”
• “My daughter’s trying to figure some stuff out on her own. That’s good.  I’ll just leave her a little note to remind her that I love her and that I can be her sounding board if she needs one.”

Do you see that?  In the second set of responses, you weren’t so downright mean to yourself.  You didn’t beat yourself up.  If a friend came to you and told you about a rough morning with her daughter, you’d tell her not to be so hard on herself, that we all have crappy mornings with our kids sometimes, and help her brainstorm what she could do to right the ship.  If a colleague called you after a meeting to which she arrived 10 minutes late for childcare reasons, you might laugh at the idea that something so incredibly important happened in those first 10 minutes and then give her props for taking the time to settle her kids in.  If a friend bemoaned to you that her tween or teen daughter isn’t coming to her with her troubles like she used to, you would reassure her that her daughter is showing signs of normal adolescent development, and you might tell her she can still show her daughter she’s there for her, even if her daughter wants to try and handle her drama on her own.

I know:  it’s not like you can just flip the self-talk switch and shift from inner bully to inner-BFF.  But you can start to become aware of that voice in your head, and hear what kind of trash you might be talking – about yourself.  You can take the stance of an observer, collecting information about the way you speak to yourself.  If you notice that your inner voice is more bully than bestie, you’ll know you have to start catching yourself in the act of cutting yourself down and think to yourself:  would I ever say that to a friend if she came to me with this very situation?  Chances are, you wouldn’t.

And, if the idea of flipping the script feels totally out of reach, or if you continue to maintain that for some reason, you deserve to speak to yourself this way, consider talking with a professional.  Targeted, short-term help can go a long way in helping you develop an inner voice that is kinder, gentler, and more compassionate.  You deserve nothing less.