Less than Ideal

Being a consumer of information and education, I often am presented with “ideal” practices for parenting, running a business, marriage, health, etc. Sometimes these ideas are presented in a way that leave me confident I have a plan and that it will work. However, if it does not work, what does that mean? 

Let’s go with potty learning for example. In my research, I learned about helping our kids understand and feel their bodily urges so they could prompt their need for the potty, to avoid rewards, and to help them develop intrinsic motivation to connect their body’s feeling to the necessary action. This all made sense to me. 

I learned to model myself getting the feeling of needing to use the bathroom and saying that aloud to my kids, even narrating something like, “oh, it’s hard to stop playing, I’m having so much fun, I don’t want to use the bathroom, this is hard,” to show my kids I understand it’s difficult to choose the potty over play. Ideas on increasing their comfort and understanding of poop; flushing it down the toilet from diaper, talking about where poop comes from and where it goes after flushed. 

The plan was to allow our kid to be naked for the first 1-2 days, then introduce underwear, while helping them connect their body’s feelings to needing to use the potty. On our third round of trying this, about 4 days in, our kid still struggled to get to the potty in time once underwear was in the picture. 

So, I had some options and collaborated with my partner. Do we stop this round and try again in the future? Do we keep trying the current approach? Do we introduce M&M’s as a reward? Which was recommended by our previous pediatrician and a friend recently utilized with her kid. 

BUT, I knew, this was frowned upon in the parenting communities I respected and admired. Because I could be connecting my kid’s “performance” with a reward, illicit a battle over wanting bigger rewards with time, relying on extrinsic rewards over intrinsic motivation, not facilitating knowledge for my kid to connect body urges with action and instead prompting them on my timing, which could create battles and leave them with a negative association with their body, agency, potty, etc. 

AND ALSO, I knew, this was our third round. I knew they’d be starting school in a couple of months and needed to be potty trained. I knew we had a trip in 6 weeks. My partner believed our kid had it and just needed time and some outside motivation. So, I went with a way I had not intended to and that felt, less than ideal. 

And, you know what, our kid is essentially potty learned at this point. 

It taught me about accepting the less than ideal, being open to options that maybe your community may frown upon, taking your situation into context, keeping your capacity in mind, collaborating with your parenting partners and allowing them to weigh in on the decision. 

I don’t know what impact adding candy to our kids potty learning could have long term. I can’t speak to that. I can only, make choices in the moment, that I hope, best support my family and our wellbeing.

There are no guarantees, magic tricks, one size fits all solutions. Sometimes parenting ideas are sold to us this way, especially with potty training resources. 

I’ve experienced this in other realms of life too; business, education, leading groups; there is a lot of advice out there and we can do all the things and still not get the results we desire. I don’t know if I trust promised results. 

Therapy can’t promise results. Coaches can’t promise results. Teachers can’t promise results. Doctors can’t promise results. 

I’ve bought into and hoped for many solutions out there; crystals, 30 day somatic healing, reiki, journaling, walking, meditating, yoga, therapy, diet changes, volunteering, parenting communities, business building resources, all the books that have titles with promises to solve something 

And many are helpful, some not so much; but no one thing is THE solution. I don’t believe there is A solution out there. We’re still human. Our kids are human. Our careers have factors out of our control. We all have varying capacities in different seasons of life. 

So, sometimes, we accept the less than ideal. And, that’s ok. In fact, it might give us more peace, instead of clawing our way towards what we think is “ideal.” 

Is there an area you are chasing “ideal” and maybe accepting less than ideal could free up your energy a bit more? 

Many people who are selling something, are selling the “ideal,” and it just may not be your ideal, or a reality for your context, or anyone’s for that matter.