Here you are again, right in the middle of a public place, judgmental eyes glaring at you as you (not so) patiently wait to see if your strong-willed child follows your simple request.

As is pretty typical for the way your life seems to be going today (or this week, or this year!) your simple request is ignored—yet again—even though you put a significant amount of time and energy into trying to prevent this from happening in the first place.

You’re exhausted.

You’re frustrated.

You can’t believe that you have to put this much effort into a simple request like asking your kid to stay near you at the store!

What makes matters worse is the not-so-subtle glares of judgment and criticism by the people around you who magically seem to know how to raise your kid, even though they don’t know you or your kid at all.

You can just guess what they’re thinking about you…

Doesn’t she have any control over her kid?

I can’t believe she lets her kid act like that. My kids will never act like that!

Isn’t she going to do something to let her kid know who’s the boss?!

And even though you’ve vowed a million times that you don’t care what they think, that you will parent positively—the way you want to—you find yourself questioning whether you’re a good mom.

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A few years ago, my family unexpectedly faced a difficult transition.

My son had just started kindergarten, my daughter had just started pre-school, and I had just taken a new position as an adjunct instructor at a State University, a position I had been chasing for years.

We were a busy bunch. Lots of new beginnings were underway and we were all feeling a little stretched.

And that’s when my husband was offered a job in a different state. He’d been unhappy in his current job for a few years, and I had known in the back of my mind that we were facing this possibility but didn’t want to believe it. I was happy with our home and our town and with my place in it. My children had access to a great school system and the cost of living was low without sacrificing opportunity or safety.

On the surface there were many things to be happy about in regard to the new adventure. It was, after all, an adventure! New city, new places to see, new friends, new opportunities!

But, as anyone who has ever moved before can tell you, moving brings a whole set of challenges as well.

In our case, the challenges were many. We were only four years into a mortgage on a home that I’d planned to raise my children in, a home that was just around the block from a very involved mom – mine! Not to mention the fact that I’d just secured my dream job and both kids were beginning new educational chapters, both of which had the potential to color their experiences going forward if they were successful (or not).

It was a difficult decision for our family. My husband really wanted to go; the job offered more money, with better benefits and was more closely aligned with his field of interest. And it was closer to his family – exactly in the middle of both sides, as a matter of fact.

In the end, we made the (very rapid) decision to go. The company was offering an immediate start date, and my husband didn’t want to lose the opportunity.

Our temporary arrangement was that he would leave immediately; the kids and I would stay behind to finish a few home improvement projects before putting the house on the market in the spring. We were upbeat when we explained to our small children that daddy would be leaving to move to another state, but that he would visit every two weeks (our new home was eight hours away and we thought this would be reasonable) and that we would join him in the summer. Of course, we assumed our house would sell immediately and easily and with minimal fuss.

The best laid plans and all that.

To make a long story short, nothing went quite as planned.

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If you’re anything like me, sometimes your child’s behavior baffles you.

You and your child seem to be completely different. You’re an avid soccer fan and your athleticism amazed every coach you’ve ever had. Not only does your son NOT play sports…he doesn’t like watching them either.

You’ve always been known as an introvert, the person who tends to be more productive when alone. Your daughter craves social interaction and always surrounds herself with a cackle of friends.

Sometimes I look at my son and wonder “What world are you from?!”

When he was three, I signed him up for swimming classes. As a child, I had a profound love for swimming and always envisioned my kids sharing in that passion. Guess who is terrified of the water…

Most parents have a preconceived notion of what their kids will like. These notions can be quickly dashed away when we realize that these little humans have their own way of approaching the world and can have different abilities and completely different tastes. It’s important that we try to understand our children’s temperament and behavior so that we can better appreciate their uniqueness.
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We don’t do anything well when we’re tired.

We don’t drive well, perform surgery well or screen airline baggage well when we’re tired.

And as millions of us know from experience, we don’t parent well either.

Science gives us some clues as to why. When we don’t get enough sleep, the frontal and parietal control regions of the brain don’t raise activation as well as normal, and there is reduced activation in the visual sensory cortex.

In plain language, our brains don’t work right. Studies have found that just one night without sleep causes impairment in tasks requiring flexible thinking, that people who are sleep deprived are more irritable (duh!) and that sleep deprivation makes it difficult to multitask.

So why do we expect ourselves to be good parents when we’re exhausted?

Maybe because being tired seems like the very definition of parenthood. Newborn babies wake frequently to eat, older babies and toddlers wake from teething pain and separation anxiety, older children wake when they have nightmares, and everyone sleeps poorly when they’re sick.

Luckily, most sleep disturbances are relatively short-lived, and research suggests that our brains go back to normal after getting some good sleep. But until we can get that sleep, how do we manage our children and maintain our commitment to positive parenting?

As the mother of two children who regularly wake me up in the middle of the night (often repeatedly!), I have a lot of experience parenting with minimal sleep. I’ve learned that although it’s hard to be the parent I want to be when I’m tired, it is possible if I keep a few simple things in mind.

Below are some of the tricks I’ve learned to be the best parent I can be when I’m tired.

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As your children grow, everything seems more important — mistakes have bigger consequences, peers can be a bigger negative influence, and there is potential for embarrassment on social media.

All of those things are real concerns.

As a response, many parents shift into “hypervigilant panic mode.”

They drill their children for answers. They hover over homework completion. They tighten the house rules and expectations.

This all comes from a well-meaning place. You love your children and want the absolute best for them. You don’t want to see them fail or struggle. And you definitely don’t want them to become distant.

Unfortunately, “panic-mode” usually backfires.

Instead of keeping your children close, they start to push back and pull away.

Thankfully, there are a few alternatives that will keep the communication with your tween or teen open and your relationship strong.

8 Tips for Strong Communication with your Tween or Teen

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