When I was in the church I was pretty darn confident in my ability to parent. Sure, maybe I yelled more than I was comfortable with, but I knew exactly how to manage my children’s behavior. And I made sure they believed what they were supposed to believe. My kids talked the talk, walked the walk, and thought the thought. They were exemplary Mormon kids and I was a great Mormon mom.
After I left the church, I suddenly realized that post-Mormon me knew nothing about real, healthy parenting. I no longer felt comfortable controlling my kids, but I didn’t know how to parent any other way. Instead, I found myself just sitting passively. I wasn’t yelling anymore, but I didn’t know what my kids needed from me.
Even after four years I’m still figuring out post-Mormon parenting and feeling my way forward, but I’m starting to understand and shift from control to connection and from managing behavior to meeting needs.
Content Warning:
This next section will consider some problems we may have experienced in our childhood homes or, if you’re like me, even found ourselves perpetuating in our own home as a parent. In the interest of informed consent I’m just gonna say it might be depressing for those of us navigating post-Mormon parenting. I include it because I personally wasn’t able to start healing from the way I was raised until I saw why it was a problem, but feel free to skip straight to the solution. Here’s a ‘Jump to Recipe’ option.
3 Common Pitfalls of LDS Parenting
1. Behavior Focused
To varying degrees many of us were raised in a behavior focused home where:
- Compliance = Good & Disobedience = Bad
- There was one right way to be
- There was one acceptable life path to choose
- Conformity kept us safe and loved
Various harmful tactics were used to keep children behaving well:
- Guilt
- Manipulation
- Fear of losing parental approval
- Fear of losing God’s approval
Sometimes these tactics were used out of a sincere belief that certain behaviors will lead to happiness, but sometimes it was motivated by a need to maintain appearances and uphold the family place in the community.
Either way the attempt to control children’s behavior did little to improve a real connection between parent and child or to allow children to develop a healthy sense of self.
2. Emotion Control
Sometimes the perceived need to control extends to controlling children’s emotions. It can be bewildering and even scary to be faced with a child’s distress, particularly if we grew up in a home where emotions were ignored or suppressed. When we don’t know what to do we often resort to control: anger, sadness, and doubt are discouraged or even punished.
Have you ever heard (or said) something like, “I’m going to count to 5 and you need to be done crying.” Or, “I’m sorry that happened, but it’s time to move on.” This control isn’t always overt or harsh, but when a child senses parental disapproval they can learn that their emotions are not okay. They learn to mask or suppress their feelings instead of understanding them and learning from them.
3. Teaching Correctness Over Skills
Sadly, it’s easy to become so focused on controlling children’s behavior and emotions that teaching actual important life skills is overlooked. We spent many family home evenings teaching our kids ‘gospel principles’ like obeying the prophet, reading scriptures, the importance of temples, etc, etc, etc.
We thought we were teaching them important skills, but how much better off would they be if we had spent that time teaching them communication skills or how to regulate emotions?
Allowing Ourselves to Grieve
For many of us, seeing these patterns post-Mormon can bring up real grief. Not because we were bad parents, but because we were trying so hard to be good ones.
We didn’t set out to control our children or suppress their emotions:
- We really believed we were doing what loving, responsible parents were supposed to do.
- We followed the rules we were given.
- We trusted the system.
And for a long time, it looked like it was working.
So, when we start to understand how behavior-focused parenting or emotional control may have limited our children it can hurt. We might feel sadness, regret, or even shame. But we can reassure ourselves that, if we had known better, we would have done better. No one can do better than what they know.
The good news is that awareness and grief are not the end. They’re the beginning of something more honest and connected for our children and ourselves. Post-Mormon parenting can be different and rewarding.
3 Mindshifts to Reconstruct our Parenting
1. Focus on Parent Behavior and Emotion Management
What we want to do is shift our focus away from managing our children’s behavior and emotionstoward managing our own behavior and emotions. So, instead of trying to stop our children from having big feelings, as post-Mormon parents we can focus on noticing what we ourselves are feeling and staying calm and steady. My post about giving ourselves unconditional love can help with this.
This can be a simple decision to stop ourselves from saying, “Stop crying, you’re fine” and instead say, “I’m going to take a breath so I can listen. You’re upset–tell me about it.”
We can first calm ourselves, then connect with our child, and then help them learn how to regulate.
Regulate (yourself) → Relate (to them) → Teach/Learn (together)
We won’t do this perfectly; we weren’t taught how. But even just pausing before reacting is a step forward. Awareness can lead to big changes over time throughout our post-Mormon parenting journey.
2. Shift from Controlling Behavior to Meeting Needs
One of the biggest mindshifts for me was realizing that my job as a parent isn’t to make sure my kids behave well. My job is to meet their needs. This idea is simple and pretty obvious, but it can be mind-blowing and life-changing to those of us navigating post-Mormon parenting.
It’s also really freeing. Because, guess what? We can’t control another person without hurting them and ourselves. But meeting needs makes them and us healthier people.
What are some of our kids’ needs?
- Emotional: help kids name, express, and regulate feelings.
- Social: provide connection, attunement, belonging.
- Life skills: teach problem solving, communication, responsibility.
- Unconditional Love: let children know they are loved exactly as they are.
Each of these are big topics and take time to understand and teach. And because unconditional love is so important and can feel so foreign post-Mormon, I have a series of posts about it:
- Post-Mormon Parenting with Unconditional Love
- Unconditional Love and Boundaries: How to Hold Both
- How to Give Ourselves Unconditional Love While Parenting
- Too Tired to Parent from Unconditional Love?
Why Connection Matters More Than Compliance
When we’ve been raised to equate good parenting with good behavior, choosing connection can feel risky. If we’re not correcting, enforcing, or managing, what’s holding everything together?
But connection isn’t permissive, and it isn’t passive. Connection is how children learn that they are safe, understood, and valued—not for how well they perform, but for who they are.
Compliance may look like success in the short term. A compliant child is easy to manage and often praised by others. But compliance doesn’t tell us whether a child feels secure, confident, or able to trust themselves. It doesn’t tell us whether they know how to navigate conflict, name their feelings, or ask for help when they’re struggling.
Connection, on the other hand, builds the internal skills our children need for life. When children feel emotionally safe with us, they are more likely to:
- Tell us what’s really going on
- Bring their fears and mistakes into the open
- Develop empathy for others
- Learn self-regulation instead of relying on external control
Connection doesn’t mean we never set boundaries. It means that boundaries are held within relationship:
- We can say no while staying present.
- We can guide without shaming.
- We can correct behavior without withdrawing love.
For many post-Mormon parents, this is a profound shift. We are learning to trust relationships instead of rules, attunement instead of authority, and presence instead of perfection. It’s okay if this takes time and practice, because in some ways we’re re-learning what connection even feels like.
But when we prioritize connection, we give our children a secure base from which they can grow into themselves.
3. Shift from Self-sacrifice to Self-care
Moms (and Dads) often receive the impression that they are valued for what they give. This can be true in society in general, but it’s particularly harmful in the LDS church where this idea is combined with the veneration of sacrifice.
We don’t have to accept these ideas anymore. Let’s open ourselves to this truth: Our needs are just as important as our children’s needs. It is not selfish to have needs, to have our needs seen and met by others, or to make sure we meet our needs ourselves.
We are not any less human than our children or other family and friends. We have needs. They need to be met! (But let’s keep in mind that it’s not our kids’ job to meet our needs. We have partners, friends, or family who can help with that. But mostly it’s our job.)
If self-care is a difficult concept to accept, it can help to understand that children’s needs can only truly be met by parents whose own needs are being met. Do we want our kids to grow up to be people who only live for other people’s happiness and are never happy themselves? No! So let’s show them how to be a happy adult by prioritizing our wants and needs.
When we take care of ourselves we show our kids a healthy way to live–and we give our children a calm, happy parent. And that is exactly what they want!
Rewrite the Script
I really believe that if we want resilient, connected kids and not just compliant ones, we can move away from this:
Parenting = (managing my child’s behavior + expecting my child to meet my needs) x avoiding\ignoring everyone’s feelings
And move toward this:
Parenting = (meeting my child’s needs + managing my own behavior and needs) x learning/teaching how to regulate our emotions
Kids don’t need perfect post-Mormon parenting, they just need presence and love. Slowly but surely we can rewrite the script we were given and begin to see and meet our children’s needs and our own needs. And then our children have a beautiful new script to work with. Everyone wins 🙂
What need is your child showing you today?
I’d love to hear from you! Contact me or leave a comment: