Parenting Multiple Kids Is Hard—How To Not Feel Like A Failure

In mindbodygreen's parenting column, Parenthetical, mbg parenting contributor, psychotherapist, and writer Lia Avellino explores the dynamic, enriching, yet often complicated journey into parenthood. In today's installment, Avellino talks about balance when you're parenting multiple children.

After I had my 3rd baby, I felt set up to fail. How was I to meet the needs of 3 different children in different developmental stages and not feel completely overwhelmed?

I find that most of the parenting advice advice I read about on social media is targeted toward people with one child. For example, providing advice on how to handle a toddler who hits, but not how to address the feelings of the one who is hit. Or they focus on how to ensure your infant gets good sleep but don't explain how to also not “shush” the older children incessantly.

Interactions within a family system are dynamic—each member influencing and being influenced by the others—which makes every reaction and intervention feel more consequential. 

A growing family means often means growing pains

It’s hard for me not to seep into a place of guilt when I feel like I am giving more to one than the others. As a kid who was not the squeaky wheel, I am conscious of how easy it is to pay attention to the one that demands the most, and yet sometimes find it hard not to.

I hear from other parents in therapy sessions what divided (versus undivided) attention feels like–listening to multiple requests at the same time, having to triage these requests, and not spinning out while it’s all occurring!? 

In each relationship, there are three sets of needs–your needs, the other person’s, and the relationship’s needs. Multiply that by partners, friends, and a few children, and what we have is a community of people who all have to figure out how to work together to feel full enough.

While I do not have all the answers, here are seven lessons I’ve learned as a mother and a therapist that may support you in navigating the hard but worthwhile work of parenting multiples without losing yourself. 

I work with parents who want to protect their children from feeling negative emotions. They tell themselves it’s because they don’t want to see their child sad or disappointed, but the reality is that these parents themselves have a hard time tolerating the negative emotions in their own bodies while witnessing their child struggle.

Remember that the goal isn’t to rescue your child from their negative emotions about sharing, it's to bear witness to it and get curious about what it feels like to be them.

Disappointment is normal and sharing is ultimately a good community lesson to learn. See what happens when you shift the goal from trying to cure them from being disappointed to allowing them to verbalize their disappointment to you and be accepted in the fullness of their experience.

I struggled with the false belief that I needed to give hours of individual time to each kid each week. When this didn’t feel possible, I told myself I failed, which discouraged me from continuing to try.

Sometimes, when we set the goal too high and don’t reach it, we tell ourselves we are the problem, when in reality, it may be the goal that needs adjustment.

I switched the goal to just 15 minutes of individual time per kid per day. It felt achievable, cup-filling for each of us, and reminded me that sometimes the shifts don’t need to be drastic overhauls but bite-sized interventions.

Ask yourself if you have the capacity or the skills to do what you want to do with your kids, and if not, adjust the goal to be more in line with where you are at.

I meet with mothers who are bending themselves in every direction to meet the needs of their families, so that they don’t have to get in touch with their own unmet needs (if we are constantly giving, we don’t have to feel our depletion).

I remind them that they are not the only ones that need to give in their family system.

Though we should not expect our children to meet our emotional needs, I do find it helpful to speak to my family as if we are a community that they play a role in and that we are all working together toward a shared goal.

This means that sometimes children have to wait their turn, listen instead of talk, be frustrated while someone else gets tended to (including the mother).

Owning the fact that you may not be able to meet your children’s needs, in developmentally appropriate ways, allows you to model boundaries and self-care for your young ones.

In the spirit of not wanting to do it all on my own, I reorient my children to other people in their lives to both build attachment relationships more widely, helping them trust others who love and support them, and to create space for myself.

For example, if my eldest daughter wants me to pay attention to a story while I am cooking dinner, I will give her the choice of waiting until later when I can focus or calling someone else that she wants to share with. 

You may find that you gravitate toward one kid because you experience a stronger temperament match—maybe this child is calmer or more cooperative. For example, I have a very rambunctious toddler and sometimes her physicality jostles me and I feel ungrounded. Because I don’t like that feeling, I notice a propensity to spend less one-on-one time with her.

But, instead of being critical of her behavior, I took this as an invitation to practice soothing myself more, so that I could be with her without feeling as dysregulated. Sometimes the behaviors that annoy us the most in others, are the ones that have the most to teach us about ourselves and the places we still need healing. 

A big misconception about how to become confident and connected adults, is to have all your needs met as a child. Of course a dependent infant is different from a 10 year old, however, in order to develop secure attachment as we age, we need our needs met about ⅓ of the time.

All needs are important and should be expressed, but sometimes acknowledging and validating that the need is beautiful, but that it can’t be met, allows our children to feel seen, heard, frustrated, disappointed, and ultimately learn that they are still loved and ok.

Going beyond our personal limits all the time to meet our children’s needs, ultimately teaches them to follow in our footsteps. 

I hear parents blame themselves for not being able to show up as the caregivers they want to be. While it is important to take inventory of our parenting and make changes within our power when we are missing the mark, it’s also essential to look at the weight bearing down on you. Living in a capitalist, racist, sexist society that grants privilege toward particular identities and disregards the needs of other social groups is also part of what makes parenting multiples to taxing and expensive.

When we beat ourselves up and begin to feel shame, the only person we take action against is ourselves through the forms of criticism and self-blame. When we are in a place of self-loathing, we do not parent well.

Own your part but also be mindful of what external forces are impacting your ability to show up, situating blame on systems and structures that are working hard to make joy and energy feel out of reach.

The takeaway 

We hear the phrase “it takes a village,” because it actually does. However, in an individualistic culture, it can be hard to create that village in our communities, to stand in when we as parents can’t. The goal is to be honest with yourself about your capacity, where you need support, and trust in the knowing that sharing (both giving and receiving) is a healthy part of being in relationships.