If you really feel guilty, do something about it and change your behaviour. But if you do not feel you are doing something wrong, then all this "I feel so guilty" chatter is just a meaningless way of making you feel better about yourself and trying to look better to others.
Lighten up. Don't evaluate every step your kid does or does not take in terms of their future capacity to make a living. Whether or not they get into the gifted program, the elite private school, or the school play will probably have little impact on who they become. Your disappointment and distress, on the other hand, will send a strong message about what you value in them -- they are lovable only to the extent they are achieving or pleasing Mother, not lovable when they are not.
Take your own counsel. Be appreciative of others' advice, but recognize that their parenting style and child's personality will be different from yours. There are no universal truths when it comes to parenting.
Refuse to play in the "Mummy Wars." Don't evaluate your child or your parenting by other kids' achievements or activities, or what other mothers are doing to give their kids a "leg up." Don't engage in social comparison -- feeling better about yourself to the extent your kids are achieving more than others, worse about yourself if they are not. I know many mothers who are depressed because their kids are not academic superstars. Remember the normal curve. Maintain a sense of self independent of your kids.
Be "in the moment." Almost every working mother wishes that she had been able to enjoy her kids more. These comments were typical: "I was always distracted, thinking about my work or what else I still had to do." "My body would be there, my mind somewhere else." "I was always worrying about what they weren't doing, what extracurricular classes they were not taking, or what marks they were not getting, rather than the good things they were doing." For children there is no difference between quality time and quantity time.
Page 2 of 3 -- Make the most of quality time spent with your family, plus find more parenting advice on page 3
