I am not a naturally gentle mama. I have a lot working against me with my anxiety and ADHD that sometimes make it very difficult to remember to have the same kindness and patience that I, myself often need. I sometimes tell my husband that I feel like the only ‘tool’ in my coping toolbox is a hammer, which is fine if you need to nail something in, but let’s be honest, not all situations are nails and some need a much softer touch.

With my background in Behavioral Psychology, I learned that, despite what people might tell you, there is almost like a science to child-rearing, in that if you behave in specific ways, your children will, inevitably, learn to behave in ways to follow suit. This is a nice idea in theory, but when I, or anyone really, say “to hell with the way I’ve been doing things, let me try this other way.” We often backtrack or just can’t remember in heated moments how we said we were going to behave. You could believe that maybe you’re just not trying hard enough. Or maybe you really don’t want to change because “otherwise you would.” But life isn’t simple like that. And even less simple– is your brain. And furthermore, the brains of your children.

I have been trying to “positive parent” for years. I can recognize that my natural patterns are sometimes destructive. Mostly the yelling. I still yell more often than I like. Less than I used to, but my belief is the proper amount of yelling is zero yelling at all. I can put these positive parenting techniques into practice if they are at the forefront of my mind, otherwise, I often fall into my same patterns of behavior. What makes this so difficult. Seems like I want to, so I should be able to. Unfortunately, our brains, smart as they are, work against us here.

Brains are very lazy things. They want to do as little work as possible to get things done. Which means that when you learn something a certain way, and that way seems to work for you, your brain is going to hardwire it into your system to make it more automatic so that you don’t have to think about it and your brain can just laze about, doing as little as possible. Paying attention to things– thinking about them– actually makes your brain work harder. Your brain has information parceled into sections, and it will have to access these parcels to locate the information you are looking for. Which is why it is so hard to change a habit, and why you will have backsliding, which is the brain’s way of telling you that it doesn’t want to change, that it has been doing things this way so far, and that no one is dead yet, so it must be working. Of course, we all know that not all habits are good habits. If you would like more details about this, there is a husband/wife podcast that I listen to which is based out of Australia called Hey Dimmu. Their most recent podcast, which you can find here, covered a similar topic.

Maybe you haven’t been a parent very long, so you say “well, I should be able to change this because I’m just learning.” You may be learning how to parent your child, that is true, but you’ve been learning how to parent for a long time before that. It all comes down to what kind of house you grew up in. My house was a home of a lot of yelling, lecturing, and power battles between child and parent. There were some things that my parents did when I was a child that were easy for me to give up, and some things my husband and I both supported each other in not doing because it had been traumatizing for us, but there are other things– like the yelling, like the power battles– that, no matter how much I said “this is the wrong way, I know a better way, it just never ended up happening. My brain had been programmed to believe that that was working and continue doing it even though I can look at my kids and look at myself and look at my upbringing and tell you there’s a better way. When I get into a situation where I have to recall in the moment what the better way is, I cannot do it.

So it takes a whole lot of practice to even get your brain to say “okay, I’ll try this new way.” And it takes a whole lot of practice to unlearn every bad habit you have picked up from your parents, so already that’s two things working against you. Add to that: your children. There is a reason that, when a drug addict kicks a habit, they have to drop all the people that they used to do drugs with. You’re trying to change. The people around you are not necessarily trying to change. And you can’t force them to just because you want to. Now, changing parenting styles is not an addiction, of course, but in some ways, it is like one, in that there is a chain of behaviors and consequences that you follow without thinking about it that continue to make you act in the same way. But your children also have this and, like the friends that you used to do drugs with, they will continue to treat you in the same way they always have even when you say “no, I’d rather not.” Because they have programmed responses to the responses that have been programmed inside of you, and when you do not follow that same pattern, they will often continue to perform those exact same behaviors that are a response to what they expected to see from you. but you’re stuck with this one because, although you can get a new set of friends, you can’t really get a new set of kids.

Which means not only is your own brain working against you, but so are the brains of your children. Especially older children. So don’t beat yourself up if you keep backsliding. It’s an uphill battle and you are pulling a tank. Give yourself the patience that you need from your children right now. Because it can be done, but it will require a lot of practice, a lot of reminders, and a lot of support. If you find yourself needing that kind of support, but can’t seem to get it from the people around you, I highly suggest this Instagram. Well Behaved Parent is a wonderful resource for parents who are trying to establish more positive parenting techniques, as she is a parenting coach by trade, and can even offer you one-on-one coaching if you find that to be necessary.

Above all, keep trying. Forgive yourself and forgive your children when they don’t immediately change along with you. It’s hard to be human. Brains are lazy.