First Steps and Leap Years

Unsplash/Ridham Nagralawala

There are many ways to start making progressive change in your community, write Ann Douglas and Erika Shaker in this 100% guilt-free and very achievable call to action for every person who dares to imagine that things could be better.

Happy (almost) February 29th! You’ve just been given the gift of an extra 24 hours worth of time. (We know. It’s probably the best gift you’ve been given this year—although given the way 2020 has been playing out, that might not be saying a lot.)

Not everyone is comfortable leading a march, or organizing a protest (though anyone who’s hosted a birthday party probably has more experience in this area than they realize!). But the most effective and inclusive movements rely on different kinds of meaningful contributions that allow people to join in where and how it makes sense, to grow their experience and their familiarity with making change on a larger and potentially more public scale.

So what can you do? Well, that largely depends on what skills and resources you are able to lend to the cause.

Here are a few examples of the types of contributions you can offer

SOCIAL: Your ties to your community of friends, colleagues, and family are critical to building progressive change

PHYSICAL: The “boots on the ground” approach: lending time and physical skills to a cause

ORGANIZATIONAL: Helping put the pieces in place, providing administrative support to coordinate efforts

FINANCIAL: Donating financial resources (monthly giving, stock options, legacy giving, fundraising)

CREATIVE: Using your writing, editing, storytelling, visual arts, etc. skills to reach policy makers and your community

RESOURCES: Offering space to host meetings, providing food, filling the donation wish list of an organization.

Once you've figured out what your preferred type of contribution is, the next step to finding an activity that you will feel fired up about. Here are a few suggestions.

Community

In a world that’s increasingly impersonal and automated, seeking out casual daily human interaction can be revolutionary. If possible, take public transportation, or avoid self-checkout and bank machines and make a point of having a quick conversation with the people behind the counter or in line with you. It’s much more difficult to dismiss the lived experiences of someone you’ve spoken to—this is particularly important during job actions or budget cuts which often see these people and the work they do marginalized or undermined. Sustained collective actions are fuelled by the stories and experiences of real human beings—not a catchy slogan.

Have a face-to-face conversation with someone (or a small group of “someones”) about an issue you care about. Consider, for example, the climate tea party that Ann co-hosted with her friend Andrea last summer: an event which involved four simple-yet-powerful ingredients: great people, great tea, great food, and great games. (Yes, Andrea came up with a cool climate change game that involved having Ann play the part of a climate villain.) Maybe you could come up with something fun and unexpected, too?

Make connections. Check out what’s happening at your local library or community centre or after a school council meeting. Look for other ways to connect with other human beings and to contribute to the life of your community. Find your people. They might be closer than you realize, and more of them than you think.

Communication

Ann will never in a million years volunteer to be treasurer for any organization, but she will happily write a blog post or do something similar because that’s something that comes naturally to her and that she actually enjoys as opposed to dreading. Can you use your skills, or your circle of friends, to amplify a message, to highlight someone doing excellent (perhaps under-appreciated) work, or to provide a new platform of support to a cause or campaign you may be less familiar with, but deserves attention and support? 

Write a letter to a politician—or a whole bunch of politicians—making the case for a policy change you support. We’re thinking of a recent letter that a group of citizens wrote to Marc Garneau after meeting with him to express their dissatisfaction with the Liberal government’s abandoned promise re: electoral reform. An action that like that can make a big difference.

Send a thank you note to a decision-maker, community leader, or politician. (Hey, maybe writing grumpy letters isn’t your style. If so, this option is for you.) Express appreciation for an act of political courage or their commitment to going above and beyond the call of duty in some way. Better yet, turn it into an open letter. Post it on your website. Send a copy to the local newspaper. Create a video of yourself reading it on social media. Sprinkle the seeds of appreciation far and wide—identify people on Twitter or Instagram whose work you appreciate (e.g. Chloé Germain-Thérien's incredible guide to understanding the #wetsuwetenstrong solidarity blockades happening across Canada, for example) and give them a public shout-out. Who knows what other changes you can spark—in yourself, or others—and how your circle of support (and friends!) may grow? 

Recognize the limitations of online conversations and social media sites. Facebook is a great way to get the word out about an event, to sign a petition and even to build contact lists—but ensuring people understand how an unfamiliar issue impacts them and their loved ones requires conversations, relationship-building, and information sharing. That’s the foundation of long-term momentum.

Capacity-Building

Identify areas of your life where you have something in abundance (which could mean anything from too many cans of canned tomatoes or too much time alone). Then look for a way to reinvest that abundance in a way that will make someone else’s life better. Not everyone can make a financial donation (legacy giving or stock options, for example)—though financial resources are in too-short supply in the NGO world—but there’s more to movement-building and community support than money. Donate those extra cans of canned tomatoes to your local food bank.

Creativity

Give yourself time off for good behaviour. The revolution won’t be sparked in a day, so you need to pace yourself. We need you to safeguard the precious resource that is you! There was a point to the old socialist adage: eight hours' labour, eight hours' recreation, eight hours' rest. We all need time to relax, to reflect, and to recharge. Read a book you’ve been meaning to: Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada is on Erika’s agenda for March Break.

Listen to an inspiring progressive podcast while you chop veggies, clean your bathroom, fold laundry, or otherwise go about the business of daily living. It’s called temptation bundling. You reward yourself for doing a less-than-inspiring task by “bundling” that task with something you love: listening to a podcast that moves you to action. We love Sandy & Nora, The Intercept, Bad and Bitchy, VoicEd, CCPA's Talking Points (of course!)...but follow us on Twitter to see some of our other favourites (far too many to list here!).

Create a piece of political art. It’s great therapy! And it doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive or time-consuming. It could be as simple as handwriting a quote and sharing it on social media or knitting, sewing, or painting something that expresses your progressive political vibe. Consider doing this collectively with old friends or new ones—like an updated version of a quilting bee—to unwind and engage on an entirely different level. We frequently forget to nourish this part of ourselves, perhaps because it’s seen as frivolous, but it’s often a way to engage our political goals and priorities more fully and in a more holistic way.

Take a lesson from libraries—or tool libraries, or household equipment libraries: consider setting up an “activist library” in your community to support local NGOs or grassroots campaigns—even job actions—by sharing experience, knowledge, campaign tips, or time. Can you loan your banner-making skills? Stuff envelopes? Do you have unused art supplies? What about making meals for door-knockers and leaflet distributors, or offering copywriting or editing skills? Do you have a button-making machine you can drop off in preparation for a rally at City Hall? 

Look for ways to expand the conversation beyond the same group of faces. Meeting after meeting with the same well-meaning and dedicated crew of the usual suspects is not just repetitive: it’s unrepresentative, and it’s a virtual guarantee that any progress we might make or changes we might successfully advocate for will be at the expense of others who are already unheard. Are you in a position to use your extra time to broaden the “community” we work with? Can you use your time, and your skills, to ensure more voices are heard, and that decisions are more reflective of the needs of the entire population? 

Sometimes people are missing from these conversations for very basic reasons. Precarious employment and debt, including student debt, can be a huge barrier to civic engagement and participation. Public transportation is not always as convenient as we may like to think. If child care is not provided (even at school council meetings, for example) can it be prioritized? What about setting up a child care/babysitting bank (or even “solidarity camps” during job actions) to support parents who find it difficult to attend school board or school council meetings or other political activities? This would ensure attendance reflects broad community representation and, in addition, draw attention to the societal need for affordable, accessible, universal child care. 

Some obstacles to inclusion and representation are much more physically systemic. Consider doing an accessibility audit of your neighbourhood (or your downtown if you’re feeling that ambitious), and reexamine your assumptions of who has full access to public spaces. A minor inconvenience for one person may bring another to a complete halt—and may make it less likely their voice will be heard in the very decisions that impact them the most. 

The journey of a thousand miles...

The first step is often to challenge yourself to challenge assumptions of what’s possible, or to push back against the limits we often put on the progress we’re capable of making. It’s easy to buy into narratives like, “This is the way it’s always been” or “That could never happen.” Turn that thinking on its head by asking, “Says who?” and “Why not?” Or “Wanna watch me?” Enlist friends in this task. Make new ones. 

Practice two-way mentorship. Listen (and yes, this can itself be a challenge). Ask “how can I help”?  Be patient with others, who may not have the time or the comfort level to engage in activities you consider a priority; be patient with yourself, when you need to take a moment to rejuvenate or to learn something new. Seek out opportunities to learn, to ask “what don’t I know?”, to do the work required to better understand, and to get out of comfort zones.

Remember: progress can be slow. There can be setbacks. But the community we build celebrates our victories and supports us during moments of disappointment. The creativity we nurture helps us reconfigure “mistakes” as learning opportunities—which can be as valuable as victories. The communication we practice ensures that we are always learning from each other—from past wins, and from omissions we must avoid in order to be truly inclusive. And the capacity we build will contribute to a foundation of trust, allowing us to recognize and make use of the resources we collectively represent. 

Time is valuable...and transformative. Let’s use our skills, enthusiasm, experience, and compassion and do what we can to make the most of it—for ourselves, and each other. 

Ann Douglas is the weekend parenting columnist for CBC Radio, creator of The Mother of All Books series and author of Parenting Through the Storm. Her most recent book, Happy Parents, Happy Kids, was published by HarperCollins Canada in February 2019. Find her latest work on her website and follow her on Twitter at @anndouglas for updates.

Erika Shaker is director of the CCPA National Office and Editor of Our Schools / Our Selves. Find her on Twitter at @ErikaShaker. 

What I Heard at National Child Day in Ottawa

I spent Wednesday volunteering with Children First Canada at their National Child Day event in Ottawa. What follows are the highlights of what I heard at the conference (which focused on Canada’s commitment to upholding the rights of children), plus a few snapshots of the powerful artwork created by some of the children and youth who attended.

We have a long way to go as a country when it comes to achieving our goal of becoming the best place in the world for children for children to grow up. Canadians think we’re doing a better by our kids than we actually are. The good news is that when Canadians do hear about how bad things really are for children and youth, they are genuinely shocked and they want Canada to do better.

Some of the artwork created by children and youth at National Child Day in Ottawa.

When things are bad for children, they are almost unspeakably bad. Children are suffering and being traumatized. They are hurting and they are being hurt. They are struggling to survive. Sometimes they aren’t actually able to survive: not because of any failing on their part, but because we failed them. We’ve tolerated inequities. We’ve overestimated what kind of job we’re doing when it comes to raising up a generation of happy, healthy kids. We’ve failed to understand the gravity of the situation. We’ve allowed children to fall into the gigantic gap between what former Ontario Child Advocate Irwin Elman calls “the nice words of government” and the reality of what children are actually experiencing on the ground.

We need to ignite a spark of outrage in Canadians – to “push beyond the platitudes,” as Children First Canada CEO Sara Austin put it. We need to move forward with both optimism and urgency. We have the data. We have the solutions. We just need the personal and political will to make things happen. And there’s so much we can learn from the Indigenous worldview. As Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation put it: “If you want to make change anywhere, start with the kids.” Start with the kids, indeed.

“Children should have a voice in politics and policies.”

It will be challenging to move certain policies forward, given that we’re heading into a minority parliament. Michele Austin, Head of Government, Public Policy, and Philanthropy at Twitter Canada, recommends that citizens and organizations advocating on behalf of children emphasize the benefits to the incoming government of taking action on this issue. Messages are more likely to be heeded by the Liberal minority government if they’re framed along the lines of, “This will bring you votes that will move you into majority territory.”

It is also important to build consensus on key issues outside of political circles — by connecting with parents, grandparents, and others who care about children. As Jennifer McLeod Macey (Vice President, Public Affairs, IPSOS) noted, “Noisy people get things gone.” We need to find those noisy people and amplify their voices.

That’s going to mean having some brave conversations: conversations that cross generational, cultural, and political divides. We need to allow children and parents to speak frankly and honestly about just how anxious they are about both the present and the future. And then we need to commit to taking concrete action to make things better. We can’t just pay lip service to these issues. We can’t just talk about being a country that cares about children. We have to be prepared to walk the walk.

That means listening—really listening—to the many calls to action we are hearing from children and youth. I took a few minutes to read through the posters they created today and I was moved by so many of their messages. Here are just a few of the messages that will stick with me long after today: 

“I wish people listened about the environment.” “I wish the Earth was still nice.”

“I wish people listened about the environment.”

“I wish the Earth was still nice.”

“Children should have a voice in politics and policies.”

And on one of the many mental health posters, a simple, “Help.”

Children and youth at the conference told us that they want us to be real about what we’re actually prepared to do to make things better. They want us to know that they will hold us accountable if we merely go through the motions of listening; or if we fail to back up that listening with action.

We owe it to them as a country to do more and better.

Let’s honour that promise, starting right now.

Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books about pregnancy and parenting including, most recently, Happy Parents, Happy Kids and Parenting Through the Storm. She is also the weekend parenting columnist for CBC Radio.

My Citizen Mandate Letter

Ann Douglas has written herself a “citizen mandate letter” to spell out her personal action plan for the next session of Parliament.

I just finished writing myself a "citizen mandate letter" -- my own personal action plan for the next session of Parliament, which is scheduled to begin on December 5.

It’s kind of like one of those “minister mandate letters” that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote to each of his cabinet ministers shortly after he came to power back in 2015, except, in this case, it’s a letter I wrote to myself.

I wrote this letter to remind myself that the actions citizens take in between elections are even more important than the actions they take during elections. I want the next government to make progress on three complex and interconnected issues -- the climate crisis, electoral reform, and income inequality. My plan spells out what I, as an ordinary citizen, can do to encourage them to make progress on all three fronts.

I’m sharing this letter with you in the hope that you will decide to write a similar letter to yourself. And if you do decide to write one, I'd love it if you'd share that letter with me. That way, we can inspire one another to turn our plans into action. I’ll be reporting back to you about my progress and I’d love to hear what you’re working on, too.

- Ann

Citizen Mandate Letter for Ann Douglas

During the upcoming session of session of Parliament, I will be doing everything in my power as a citizen to encourage our elected officials to make progress on the following three issues:

1. the climate crisis,

2. electoral reform, and

3. income inequality.

I am focusing my efforts on these three issues because, if we can make progress in these three areas, we’ll have the income needed to invested in other critically needed programs and services and to fund the transition to a greener and more just economy and we’ll have a voting system that ensures that everyone’s voice is heard (something that is critical for the health of our democracy).

I am highly motivated to take action on each of these issues because I feel like we’ve reached a make-it-or-break it point for our country and our world; and I really want us to make it. If we don’t make progress on these three issues, life is going to get a whole lot worse for a whole bunch of people — and likely irreversibly worse. Besides, it feels so much better to be actively trying to make things better as opposed to merely standing on the sidelines feeling hopeless. When it comes to a choice between hope and cynicism, I will choose hope every time.

Here are the specific actions that I commit to taking throughout the duration of the next Parliament.

I will request a face-to-face meeting with my Member of Parliament. I will plan to meet with her face-to-face to explain why it is so important to make progress on these three key issues. When I meet with her, I will make the case for taking action and, more specifically, I will spell out what her government—the ruling party—stands to gain by demonstrating leadership on all three fronts.

I will also write to other Members of Parliament. Cabinet Ministers, Committee Members, and other Parliamentarians who are working on these all-important issues need to hear from ordinary Canadians from across the country. I will ensure that my voice is one of the voices that is heard.

I will have ongoing conversations with my fellow citizens. I will connect with other people I know who are already working on my three top issues. But, in addition to that, I will make a conscious effort to connect with voters who felt that they had little choice but to vote strategically in the last election and who are still feeling angry and discouraged as a result. I want to help them to see that they still have an opportunity to make their voices heard in all kinds of powerful and far-reaching ways and that the time for action is now—before we find ourselves caught up in yet another voting cycle when they might once again be forced to perform electoral gymnastics in an attempt to make a badly broken voting system work.

I will continue to support the work being done by grassroots groups and non-profit organizations that are working to make progress on the issues that matter most to me. I’ll volunteer my time, make financial donations, and look for random opportunities to shine a spotlight on the important work they are doing.

I will continue to donate my time, energy, and money to the political party that is most in synch with my values. I want that political party to be in the strongest possible position, both financially and in terms of people power, by the time the next election is called. The only way that’s going to happen is if I support those efforts right now.

Our electoral system isn’t working nearly as well as it should in terms of representing the viewpoints of ordinary citizens. That means that we as individual citizens have to work harder—a whole lot harder—to ensure that our voices are heard. But it doesn’t have to be impossibly hard. Writing a few letters, making a few donations, scheduling a few meetings, and supporting the efforts of our fellow citizens to do likewise has the potential to make a big difference. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get started: to find tiny ways to make a big difference together.

Book Pairing #2: If you loved Happy Parents, Happy Kids, you'll love Change Your World

I’m back with another book pairing. (Yes, I know: that was quick! It’s because I have a huge backlog of books I’ve been meaning to blog about — and launching this new blog feature has inspired me to catch up on that backlog.)

Anyway, the second book I want to tell you about is Michael Ungar’s latest book: Change Your World: The Science of Resilience and the True Path to Success — a book that takes a deep dive into the science of resilience to identify the factors that actually allow people to thrive. (Spoiler alert: It’s not about hustling a little harder or being more motivated: it’s about being fortunate enough to grow up in an environment that is rich in opportunity.)

What I love about this book is that Ungar rejects the idea that success is something that is completely within our control as individuals and highlights instead the importance of broader, more systemic factors: what’s happening in our families, our community, and our world. Improving our personal circumstances becomes less about changing ourselves and more about joining forces with other people to make things better for all of us, in other words. As Ungar explains: “We need a clean break from the mindset that places the responsibility for self-actualization on an individual’s shoulders—it is a misread of what the science tells us about what makes us successful. If we want to understand why some people succeed and others do not, and if we want to succeed ourselves, we will need far fewer motivational gurus and much more help from the people in our families, our workplaces, our communities, and our society.”

Bottom line? It’s less about do-it-yourself and more about do-it-with-others.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Michael Ungar about his book. We talked about the importance of tapping into support from the village (a key theme in my most recent book, Happy Parents, Happy Kids) and helping our children to do the same. What follows are a series of questions (mine) and answers (his).

Q: Why are North Americans so drawn to self-help solutions? Why is it so hard for us to accept and embrace (a) our interconnectedness to other humans and (b) the impact of broader environments on our lives?

A: There is an overwhelming myth of the rugged individual that infiltrates every part of our social world. It seems to blind us to the real sources of our resilience: our relationships, our communities, our institutions. While I understand the need to be self-directed and motivated, the science of resilience tells us that striving in a world that offers us few opportunities to use our talents or succeed simply creates frustration and burnout (allostatic load). Our success depends on the world around us changing to meet our needs, or at least making opportunities available for us to use.

Q: Why is it important for children/youth to grow up understanding that they are part of something much bigger than themselves — a family, a community, humanity?

A: A child who understands that she is part of a larger system is a child who will have more of the building blocks for resilience. These include a sense of accountability to others, a sense of belonging, and a sense of one’s cultural heritage. So much of who we are, and our sense of wellbeing, hinges on our immersion in networks of relationships. Even in school, the quality of our relationship with our teacher can profoundly influence academic outcomes, especially for more vulnerable/challenged students.

Q: What is your best advice to parents in terms of how to foster this awareness?

A: First, model being part of a community, an extended family, a workplace. Then don’t be shy about insisting children become part of these relationships too. Expect them to eat with adults. Expect them to travel with you to places you are interested in. When our children see us navigating our way through the world, and finding ways to feel valued, they learn how to do the same. I just don’t understand why we let children become isolated, or insist that every activity is centred on their needs. This does nothing but create narcissism, when what we want is our children to feel a part of networks of people who rely upon them.

Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books about pregnancy and parenting including, most recently, Happy Parents, Happy Kids. She is also the weekend parenting columnist for CBC Radio.

Parenting is a Two-Way Street

Parenting can feel like an impossibly high-stakes activity. After all, what’s at stake is nothing less than the health and wellbeing of the next generation of humans. That’s more than a little daunting, don’t you think? Is it any wonder then that so many of us feel so much pressure to get this parenting thing right?

Well, here’s a simple yet all-important fact about parenting that might help to ease some of the pressure you might be feeling.

Parenting isn’t just about you! It’s actually about you and your kid. Instead of thinking of parenting as something you do to your kid, think of it as something that you do with your kid. Think of parenting as a two-way street.

That may seem like a subtle distinction, but it’s actually a pretty big deal. There’s a growing body of research to show that parents and kids shape one another’s behaviour in intricate and interconnected ways. Your child acts in a particular way and that elicits a particular response from you — which, in turn, causes your child to react in yet another way again. The effect is bidirectional, in other words. It’s anything but a one-way street.

Here’s where the good news piece comes into play. Because the parent-child relationship is constantly changing and evolving, you have endless opportunities to get it right. After all, your child isn’t the only one who is learning and growing. You’re learning and growing as a parent.

This message should be tremendously reassuring to every parent who ever wondered, “Do I actually have what it takes to be a good parent?” (which, quite frankly, is pretty much every single parent on the planet). Because here’s the thing: you don’t have to have everything figured out up front. You and your child can learn and grow together.

How this contributes to child development

Children aren’t just inert blobs of clay, waiting to be molded into shape by their parents. They play an important role in their own development. Parents have an impact on kids and kids have an impact on parents. The effect is bidirectional, in other words.

It isn’t difficult to figure out how an interactive and highly responsive parent-child relationship helps to support a child’s development. It helps to ensure that the needs of each individual child are met in a particular way in a particular moment — and it allows for the fact that those needs are going to change on an ongoing basis over time.

If you think about it, this makes so much sense. Each child is unique, so it makes sense that every parent-child relationship would be unique as well. Every child needs something slightly different from her parents. Add to that the fact that children are ever changing and you can see why it’s important that the parent-child relationship be incredibly flexible and nimble. The needs of a toddler are, after all, very different from the needs of a newborn baby, and they’re very different again from the needs of, say, a teenager.

Understanding this simple yet all-important concept can be a huge relief to parents. Suddenly, parenting becomes less about following a particular pre-scripted set of one-size-fits-none operating instructions and more about trying to answer the question, “What does this particular child need from me right now?”

This is something I was speaking with Dr. Jean Clinton about recently. She’s a child psychiatrist, a mother of five, and a grandparent of four. She encourages parents to recognize and celebrate the fact that parenting is all about parents and kids learning from and about one another. “It’s a relationship that evolves over time; and what grows in each of us as we’re learning about each other really is the heart of the matter,” she said.

A case in point: how babies learn how to talk

Want a concrete example of how this bidirectional thing plays out in real life?

Consider the way that babies acquire language. Their coos and babbles are designed to elicit a particular type of response from parents — that over-the-top exaggerated speech known as parentese. This is why, when you encounter a very young baby, you find yourself speaking in a repetitive, sing songy voice, “Are you just the sweetest baby ever? Aren’t you just the sweetest? Yes, you are!” Babies find this kind of speech utterly captivating. They listen attentively to these over-the-top speech sounds and, over time, they gradually figure out how to make these sounds for themselves. In other words, those babies elicit the very type of language learning that they need a particular moment — and those needs change over time. That’s why, by the time they’re ready to celebrate their first birthday, babies are communicating in a very different way, pointing at objects and asking, over and over again, through words or gestures, “What’s that?” They will have shifted their focus from sound construction to vocabulary building.

Another example: how parents and kids influence one another’s physical activity levels

But the bidirectionality of parenting isn’t just a phenomenon that happens during babyhood. It is baked into each and every single stage of parenting. There’s a growing body of research to show, for example, that more active parents have more active kids — and vice versa. Yes, more active kids have more active parents, too!

Let’s think about how things might play out in the life of a particular family — a family where the parents led pretty sedentary lives until Junior arrived on the scene. Let’s say Junior is one of those really high-energy kids: a kid who is in perpetual motion from the moment he wakes up until the moment he reluctantly heads to bed. The parents of this kind of high-energy kid might find themselves heading to the park after dinner to try to let him run off some of that steam — which could encourage them to become more active than they might otherwise have been. Lounging on the couch after dinner is no longer an option in their world — at least not now that Junior has arrived on the scene!

I don’t know about you, but I find this endlessly fascinating, thinking about the many different ways parents and children end up affecting one another — and how that continues to change over time.

What this means for parents who are raising more than one child

If you happen to be raising more than one child, you could be in for a bit of an exciting ride as you attempt to meet the needs of very different children in very different ways all at the same time. It can also be incredibly humbling as you come to terms with the fact that parenting isn’t 100% about you!

This is something I was speaking with Nicole Johnson about recently. She’s the mother of four school-aged children. She thought she had this parenting thing down to an art until her fourth child arrived on the scene. “I call my fourth my humility child,” she explained. “My [first] three went to bed super well: I had no battles with bedtime. And I thought it was all me. I just thought I was fantastic at this. And then I had my fourth child. He is a night owl and I realized very quickly with him that my other three went to bed well because that was just in their nature. It really didn’t have as much to do with me as I thought it did.”

Again, this all makes perfect sense. After all, if every child is unique, then every parent-child relationship is going to be unique, too, as each child works at getting her own unique set of needs met in a unique way by a particular parent.

This also helps to explain why siblings growing up in the very same household with the same set of parents can have very different experiences of being parented — to say nothing of very different relationships with each of their parents.

How learning about bidirectionality can help you to ditch some of your parenting guilt

Understanding that the parent-child relationship is dynamic and ever-changing can be a game changer for you and your child. It allows you to ease up on some of the pressure you might otherwise be putting on yourself to have everything about parenting figured out ahead of time; or to feel like you have to force yourself and your kids to conform to one-size-fits-all parenting advice that isn’t a particularly great fit for either of you.

It’s been my experience in my own life as a mom of four that one-size-fits-all parenting advice fits about as well as one-size-fits-all pantyhose (which is to say not well at all). So trust yourself to figure out what your child needs from you and trust your child to help you figure that out as well.

Of course, it’s helpful to learn about child development and to have a broad sense of what most children need at particular stages of their development, but don’t allow all that expert advice to cause you to overlook how much you already know and how much you will continue to learn as a result of your relationship with your child.

A couple of decades into this adventure called parenting, I now understand that that’s how things are supposed to work: that my relationship with each of my kids will always be changing and evolving because we as individuals are constantly changing and evolving.

Who knows where this parent-child adventure will take us in the years and decades to come?

I honestly have no idea, but I can’t wait to find out.

Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books about parenting, including, most recently, Happy Parents, Happy Kids. She is also the weekend parenting columnist for CBC Radio. This column is based on her most recent CBC Radio parenting column.