Questions to Examine your Parents

We might think back to our pasts and give our carers a score out of ten to measure how things went. It isn’t unfair or mean sometimes - in the privacy of our own minds - to hold people to account. Finish the sentence, "My Parent made me' below and give each a score out of 10. My parent made me: - feel deeply loved and wanted. - Was often highly attuned to what I actually felt - Was able to tolerate a degree of innocent disobedience - Was authentically happy about my success - Lacked sadistic impulses - Avoided imposing too many of their own issues on me - Didn’t demand to be admired - Wasn’t too exciting - Knew how to play - Had boundaries - Tolerated dissent - Took an interest in my ‘small’ joys and pains We don’t need a score of a hundred and twenty to be robust, but if things were to drop much below sixty, there might be grounds for a good deal of reflection and sorrow. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/4dSKU Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/0MF1U FURTHER READING You can read more on this and other subjects here: https://bit.ly/3Mdm2fy “Some people assume that you can’t really say what a good — or indeed a bad — parent actually is. But we don’t agree. So we’ve designed a checklist of what we think makes up a good parent…” MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLself SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ X: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-school-of-life-for-business/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Gemma Green-Hope http://gemmagreenhope.com Sarah Hope http://www.artist-sarah-hope.co.uk Title animation produced in collaboration with Vale Productions https://www.valeproductions.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices