Reflect

For example, in order to protect our baby from any discomfort whatsoever, my husband slept with our son upright on his chest for the first two nights of his life for fear of him crying. The madness continued when on one sunny day in central London, I didn’t want the sun shining onto my newborn's precious face, so I tilted my entire body into a painful postural distortion, whilst pushing the pram, to protect him from the rays. I also remember covering his ears anytime a big bus passed by because I didn’t want him to wake up! Anyone who has struggled to breastfeed an infant will recognise the dreadful positions we often assume to get them to eat or just to get them to sleep. Most parents have slept upright on occasion, on bedroom floors, or with small bodies on top of us in our own beds over the course of our parenting. We all know what it is to sacrifice our own physical comfort for our children’s immediate needs.

During these early days, a turning point for me was meeting a stranger in the street. She had stopped to admire my new baby but quickly realised that I was frazzled and tearful. I was four weeks postpartum and hadn’t slept properly for a month. I still remember her face and how she looked at my son with a large smile on her face. She started to reassure me. “They do grow up, you know. Things get better and before you know it, he will be able to do things for himself (eat, put himself to bed and even put on his own seatbelt!). I remember replying, “Really?” and thinking, “That doesn’t seem possible”. She then told me to make sure I took care of myself. “Have you eaten today?” she said. “See if you can have a little nap when he naps. Remember, things do get better”.

When I think back to the young mum that I was, I feel sorry for her. She was trying her best in a big city with little social support and everyday that she kept her baby alive felt like some sort of miracle. Becoming a parent felt overwhelming and frightening. The thought that I was responsible for keeping my son alive on zero sleep was a heavy burden, but that stranger gave me some hope that I was living through a phase, which helped me to cope.

A further moment of hope came, a couple of months in, when my hubby arrived home with a parenting book. I was bedraggled and nodding off on the sofa. “Kathy, everyone at work says this book is brilliant. It is talking about the importance of routines. Maybe we need one? Can we maybe read Chapter 6 together and try it?”. To the sleep deprived brain, any instruction manual was welcome. It told me what to do and how to do it. As I leafed through the pages, I remember reading about something called the ’overtired cry’ and realised I hadn’t understood the basics of when my baby was tired and needed to go to sleep. Little tips from that book on how to recognise the first signs of infant fatigue and what to do then (from memory, it was swaddle and place him in a cot in a dark room), were game-changing to me. It transformed my confidence, because whilst instructional, it encouraged me to attune more to my child’s emotional state and the small signs that he was giving me that I was missing. That book also had a juicy chapter on self-care, which at a vulnerable time, gave me permission to look after myself (for the benefit of my child). It seemed like rocket-science at the time!

Motivate

Ultimately, people-pleasing is about saying yes to everything and everyone because you don’t want to offend anyone or ‘put anyone out’. It is driven by many factors such as fear of conflict, stress or disappointing others, and it reflects a thirst for validation and praise. Its origins are arguably based in the way we were parented, but rather than dwell on past dynamics, it is important to think about what we people-pleasers might be modelling to our children.

As nice as it feels to say yes to things and to go above and beyond for everyone, when I see glimpses of it in my children, it looks and feels distasteful. I have watched them say yes to invitations that they don’t wish to accept and witnessed them telling others that everything was ok, when it wasn’t, for fear of embarrassing the other person.

Witnessing people-pleasing objectively helps us to see it in its true light. It is basically deceptive behaviour – we deceive ourselves and we deceive others. When we fail to say how we feel, give honest feedback or admit our own discomfort in any situation, we fail to give anyone around us a chance to learn. There is a certain arrogance to people-pleasing. We assume that others can’t take the feedback or cope with an honest chat. We assume that they can’t stand up for themselves. In business, it means the recipient never gets an opportunity to improve.

I watched recently as my eldest told the barber his cut looked ‘great’ even though he declared it ‘the worst hair cut ever’ and ‘a waste of money’ as we left the premises. As I was questioning his decision not to give the barber feedback, I could hear my own hypocrisy. How many times have I done that exact same thing? Not quite brave enough to advocate for myself and instead defaulting to an undeserved compliment to someone who will remain oblivious to how they could have improved?

I am stepping up to try and model the behaviour that I wish my son to show: constructive but caring candour. How could he have given the barber feedback in a way that felt comfortable in a public setting? We talked about it. We chatted about how tricky it is to give feedback in front of others and how we don’t want to embarrass anyone, but at the same time, we need to be honest about what we want to say. We talked about sandwiching the criticism somewhat between gratitude and a progress point. We talked about whether we would want someone to tell us the truth or just to fluff over it! People-pleasers think of ourselves as the kindest and most thoughtful of all humans. I am afraid to say, reflection has taught me that we might just be the most cowardly and the unkindest, given that others have no room to grow in the face of our consistent and undeserved positivity.

A big barrier to stopping the practice of people-pleasing is time. It is so much easier to rush through life saying yes and giving everyone pats on the back than to take our time to pause, consider and respond. Another barrier is the fear of being unpopular or of losing favour. People-pleasers want to be the heroes in the piece and part of moving past that unhealthy drive is being aware of it but also comfortable with the idea that you have said your truth and whatever happens, happens. Sometimes, what feels uncomfortable to say might just be an unexpected tonic for everyone.

Saying no to things that we really don’t want to do means purposefully creating boundaries that might just preserve our mental health. As Paulo Coelho says, when you are on the verge of saying yes to something, just “make sure you're not saying no to yourself”.

Support

How comfortable are we with our choice of footwear? I don’t know about you, but practically all my shoes require a degree of sacrifice! They range from too tight to utterly unwearable. Is this the same for your children? Do a shoe audit and check that their shoes still fit and feel comfortable.

How comfortable are we all in our own beds? Is there anything that we can do to help us sleep better? Next up, consider sitting positions at home when using digital devices. Are we all assuming good posture when using iPads, laptops or desktop computers? Do we need any additional equipment or aids to help us sit more comfortably? Can we all make a pact to remind one another that we are slumping and that we might need a stretch break?

Are we comfortable with our family shopping, where we buy our food from or how much we currently spend? Have we taken time to think about options around food choices? Are we happy with our regular family meals or is there something we would like to change? Are we content with the way we are living our lives? Is there anything we can do at home to support the planet better? How comfortable are we in terms of the equitable distribution of chores at home? Is it time to revisit who does what?

All these points can be covered in one single family meeting. So instead of asking everyone what their individual goals are for 2025, family goals might just feel more fun to set together. The trickier part of the conversation might come when we address behaviour, learning progress or achievement. As parents, we can likely all think of things we want our children to improve or work towards, but it is good to consider our own self-improvement goals first. Own up to things we really want to work on about ourselves and hopefully our offspring might just follow. Show them that we are prioritising self-care rather than sacrificing our own health and happiness. If we kickstart the year with a healthy sense of self-care and model self-advocacy, whatever happens in 2025, it is at least off to an honest start.