I feel like a huge failure as a Mother

[Heyyyho]

DD is 5 and in a school with a high academic reputation, lots of structure.

She has an activity that she does on Sat mornings. Since she was 3 and something that I really feel is important for her. We missed quite a big chunk due to weather/ illness since starting school and since starting back she has said she doesn't want to go anymore. I think she feels behind from the others in her group who are more advanced than her and in Y2.
I explained to the teacher last week what was going on and she made a real effort to boost her which was great.

All week DD has been anxious about this activity and I did say she doesn't have to go this week if she is worrying about it so much. She even mentioned it to my Mum when she babysat.

This morning the sun was shining and I started to persuede her, it seems so silly not to go on a day like this. She started crying and running away saying she didn't want to go. DH said just leave it. But we are going so little there is no point anymore and it would kill me to sack it off and be a waste and shame for her.

At her report the Teacher said she can be quiet in groups and lacking in confidence sometimes, although academically she is doing well. She needs to "have a go" and throw herself into things more rather than standing on the sidelines.

She behind in swimming too and very nervous of the water. She can't swim yet really. I feel I have passed my shitty personality onto her and all this fear she has is my fault. I also feel like shit that I have come upstairs and am pretty much ignoring her after this morning's drama. I can't bear it. My way around this is to basically contradict myself and bully her. It's so not on. I am sitting here sobbing I just don't have a clue how to bring my girl up.

Look

She doesn't want to do the Saturday morning activity any more, why would it kill you to stop doing something your child does not relish? She is expressing anxiety and showing distress over the activity. Your DH is right.

Swimming - well my own children had lessons for blardy YEARS before they cracked it. Years and YEARS for crying out loud, we spent ££££ on weekly lessons but they got there in the end.

I am more concerned with you - you sound very low and not at all confident or self assured

Oh and don't measure your parenting against your child's achievements, that way lies madness

A just quickly answering as I have to go out, but ....I have 2 children. Both were/are a little shy, tentative about new things etc etc. both academically able. Dd, the older one, responded fine to being pushed into things, as you would like to do with your dd. she would always return with a " it was actually fine wasn't it mum" response.
Ds, on the other hand, would've been really traumatised by such a handling of his anxieties or nerves. He needed kid gloves which was and sometimes still now can be infuriating, but it works. He needs a lot of time, lots of gentle encouragement, lots of discussion about how and why and what will happen etc. it is working. He is sooooo much better than ever he was and although it has been really hard work at times, and I know some people think I've been really soft, it has been worth it. He is confident and knows that if he has an anxiety or concern about something, I will take it seriously and help him deal with it. We have a very close bond as a result.
HTH I'll be back later.

Thank you. I am actually really wobbly at the moment, I am disproportionately upset at this.

I wish I could be more like you posey that is exactly how I need to be.

I never received any praise from my parents no encouragement just criticism I don't have the tools to do this. I Am in tears how ridiculous.

What is the activity? Is it something she could stop and start again later if there are year 2s in the group?

My daughter also seems to thrive best when encouraged a lot, and when things are explained in advance. Each night we just briefly say what we are doing in the morning, in the morning we say what we are doing that day etc.

I had a fairly difficult upbringing and can completely relate to feeling lacking in tools to parent.One of the reasons I've found mumsnet helpful as its enabled me to see how others do things (although then I can tend towards beating myself up for not cooking everything from scratch, learning french and music from birth etc ;)) I feel overwhelmed very easily when my husband is away and go straight to thinking "i'm a bad parent" when really that's not the case at all.

You love your child, you're posting about how to get things right, already I'm sure you're not a failure as a parent. It's a tough job isn't it?

You are not a failure! You can't measure your success as a parent by how well they perform. It is a bit dispiriting when parents can be so competitive but you can have a DC who wins all the prizes and ends up at Oxford and still be a lousy mother!!

She is little more than a baby. Just let her relax and enjoy being with her. Give her the praise that your parents obviously didn't give you. It is hard being a parent, no one ever comes along and says how well you are doing, although they are quick to criticise when things go wrong. e.g. people might tell you that you are handling a tantrum all wrong, but I have yet to find anyone say-'wow, you handled that well!

She can do these things later. If someone is a good swimmer no one can tell if they started as a baby or they couldn't swim until they were 10yrs old.

She only wants you as a mother and 'good enough' is fine. I always think that the 'perfect mother' must be hell to live with!

Give her unconditional love, security and time and she will be fine-a sense of humour helps too!!

You really ARE disproportionally upset, you need to keep telling yourself that. She is 5. In 20 years do you really think any of this will matter?

Hi, I think you are being far too hard on yourself and because you are down and anxious and your little girl is picking up on that.

I have an 8 yr old who is sometimes anxious/reluctant to go to extra-curricular activities.

As pseudonym says, it depends on the individual child, and only you can judge whether this is a really deep seated fear and extreme anxiety or the ordinary/normal apprehension at having to do something she is behind in/not enjoying atm.

Once you have decided that, you can act accordingly.

However, if it's the latter, I personally would d suggest that you try and encourage her to go (but you must be consistent - don't say she doesn't have to go - and then change your mind and persuade her ). Make a decision and stick with it (I'm not being snippy saying this btw - I've done exactly the same thing as you many times, and my dd has exploited my indecision ruthlessly !!) You and your dh need to take a consistent approach too.

The reason I say this is because I think it's a good lesson to teach dc the appropriate way to react to things- and if it's really not a scary thing - then it's good to go through with it (even though it might be a bit unpleasant/boring) and experience that it actually it wasn't so bad after all. And that way they learn a bit of resilience and don't run away from their fears.

I think if something really isn't scary or bad, then we as adults, owe it to our children to explain that and follow through accordingly.

As adults, we often don't want to go out and do something that's arranged (even sometimes when we have been looking forward to it), but nine times out of ten we end up enjoying it. I think dc go through exactly the same range of emotions but being immature, it's just far more exaggerated.

It does take a lot of energy to follow through with this though - and I know from personal experience that that can be hard when you are feeling down. (I gave in on Thursday night btw when I absolutely shouldn't have done - dd protested illness and she was jumping around five minutes later eating an ice cream!!!)

And don't be down on yourself for your dd not being able to swim aged 5!!!
Loads of dc can't at that age. I even think there is some school of thought that many dc don't have the proper physique or coordination until aged 7 or older. It will come given time!!!

Take care and good luck x

And sorry for the essay

Mothers always feel guilty-we all do it!

You are only feeling a failure because you are not living up to the impossibly high standards of success that you are setting yourself. No-one else is judging you, certainly not your DD. What activity could possibly be so important that you have to feel so much stress about it. And if it is something important, she can always try again at a later age.

How can she be behind in swimming? I'm pretty sure most five year olds can't swim. If you like swimming, take her to the baths and have fun, but don't expect too much at this age.

I suppose I am saying, just try to relax a little. Your DD doesn't need the perfect mother, she only needs - just a mother, really.

Be kind to yourself OP, you don't have to be a perfect mother, you just have to "good enough". Go outside in the sunshine, go to the park or whatever, get an icecream with your DD and just enjoy a bit of time together. We all feel guilty sometimes and we all feel we're not doing it right but we're all different and there is no single "right" way for everyone, sometimes we just have to muddle along a bit.

She's only 5, try not to worry about school. And as for the swimming - did you see Sport Relief last night. Frank Skinner swam a length of the pool for the first time - he's about 50 isn't he! Watching him achieve that actually brought tears to my eyes Plus it means there's hope for DS2 who is 8 1/2 and still petrified of putting his head under water, despite school and private lessons!!!

Chill out a bit. She is 5, not many children are good swimmers at 5. Do something fun with her this pm like baking and let her set her own pace. Sounds like you expect a lot from her. Academic structure, activities she does not enjoy...assess and see whether you put more fun into her life.

She is five! Now, when my PFB was five, I probably would have been like you with activities and pushed a lot more. I have since had four more children ( although sadly one has died) and have become very chilled about things like this. If she hates the activity, leave it and let her have her Saturdays free or let her do something she likes. And bring her on a nice picnic today!

It took my DCs a ridiculous amount of lessons before they could swim, it is just the way it goes, they get there in the end, that is really not your fault.

In terms of the saturday activities, I have 3 DCs they are 14,13&8
So far they have been to

Judo
Karate
Boxing
Drama
Dance
Art
Football
Basketball
Swimming
Street dance
And prob a few more I can't remember

The only activities they do now are football and dance.
If they really really don't want to do an activities and they have really tried, not just given up after 1 session, then maybe you have to accept its not the right activity?

Thank you all so much. I will be back to post properly later but this has made such a massive difference to my feelings on this. Thank you all for your help.

Glad you are feeling better-enjoy the sunshine. You are too hard on yourself!

Please join the Bo Peep School of Philosophy - "Leave them alone and they will come home."
And please do something that makes you both laugh. Every day. Whatever.

Okay. Breathe

The first thing you have to understand is that motivation is NOT CONSTANT. Okay? By this I mean that there will be times when you have to drag your DCs to activities, with them creating all sorts of fuss about nothing in particular. After a while they forget about grumping and get on with it.

We had this with DD and swimming. She was a PITA frankly. I had to put my foot down time and time again (because I think being able to swim competently is an important and potentially life-saving skill). When she'd done all her badges, and her medals and what have you, she turned around and thanked me for keeping her going.

So what you need to do is keep being RESOLUTE. Keep her going, keep her giggling and keep her at it. Do not have a fit of the quivers yourself. It is important to keep sight of the main objective. It is important not to cave, sometimes, even when caving would be easier all round.

With swimming I take the view that (a) it is an essential life skill and that therefore (b) I want to make it as enjoyable as possible for my DD, while ensuring rapid headway . This involved going to quite a lot of trouble as we live in France where swimming teachers do not get in the water with DC but stand on the side and shout commands at them while wielding a long stick. I didn't think my small DD would think much of that, so I started her off with a very gentle week's crash course for total beginners in my parents' local pool in England, followed up by individual lessons with a fab teacher in the same pool during the holidays, interspersed with hotel pools during family holidays. No stress at all, but not a lot of progress for a while.

Only when she was 6.5 did I think she was ready for a harsher French group approach and even then I worked hard to find a really nice teacher and to form our only little private group of children. She now swims once a week in a group of four really nice children with a lovely teacher. The atmosphere is fabulous and they all make terrific progress, albeit at different rhythms. One of the four children in the group has SEN and another is borderline ASD, and then there is my hearty DD and the even heartier elder brother of the boy with SEN.

My point is - maybe your DD needs a different approach that will require more work for you initially to put into place but the payoffs will be much greater?

I and all my extended family have spent all the summers of our lives on a small island, living in a house 200 metres from a safe beach and with excellent swimming instructors. It would be a rare day when the children of the family did not swim at least 3 times. Even so, I'd say the average age for learning to swim is about 6. The only one who learnt before the age of 5 was my nephew and tbh the family put that down to him being very late in his social development and consequently without fear.

Hello , thank you to everyone who responded. I feel I should update on this.

I think a lot of the pressure is due to the fact that the school she has just started and friends/families we know are all SUPER geared towards activities, I mean everything is done to competitive level and so it has become a kind of aspiration for us too. This is very much my fault (no one forced me to sign up for these things) but as I touched upon I had a very, very weird upbringing with parents who just didn't build our confidence, quite the reverse. So in doing these lifestyle activities I feel I/DD is part of the norm.

In short I never dreamed of these opportunities so I want her to participate as any of the others do. Her school report was very much; - she has great academic skills needs to build confidence and speak out in class more. I noticed recently when talking to adults he will often talk about what she can't do very well. It's strange because I go to huge efforts to praise her but she seems to talk about others' achievements. For example last week I noticed the Teacher had put up a beautiful picture she did of a Toucan on the wall, but when questioned she started talking about her friend's lovely picture of a Snail and asked if we saw that. She didn't seem to feel pride for her own lovely work.

At the moment we have Tennis (which was what she hates currently), Rainbows and Swimming. The only thing she is actively ASKING me to do is some kind of dance class. I have decided it is rather silly to force tennis now and perhaps we will start Ballet instead. I don't know if this is the best tactic to take but it means I will have actually listened to her I suppose.

Incidentally, today at swimming she did so, so well. She received a certificate and badge and she was tickled pink. The timing was perfect! She is nearly there.

Hi again Heyyho

Well done to your dd for her swimming badge!! That's great going!

As you say, it's very easy to bring baggage from our own upbringing in to parenting and to try and over-compensate for things not done/or done to ourselves.

I think once you relax and stop worrying about your choices (and, as you say, other competitive parents!) your dd will follow suit and feel more relax and confident in herself too.

Easier said than done I know (I'm still working on it) but she's only five, so there's plenty of time ...!!

My DD is 7 and shy....she has tried gymnastics, art, dance and I am soon popping her into a sewing club as well as a drama club...she may or may not like them but it's the chance to try them out that matters.

Not whether they stick to them for years....sometimes we may have to try lots of things before we find something they love...it's fne to leave tennis...she's ony 5 as others have said.

I think that your feeling that you are not as good as other mothers is rubbing off on her. Forget them all. Drop the tennis. Only go for what she actively wants to do.
Don't worry about the shyness and not speaking out. I was still getting that on my reports in 6th form as if pointing it out could make you change! Shy people do it when they are ready. I was about 26yrs. I will speak in front of anyone now ,but it really doesn't bother me and it did then. I wouldn't have said a word at 5yrs!
Just relax-take it as it comes.

The worst thing that you can do to a shy DC is try and force them not to be shy!