Of course you think you’re doing a sh*tty job. It’s pret­ty much a byprod­uct of our soci­ety, with its inces­sant demands cou­pled with the in-your-face com­pet­i­tive­ness on social media. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the pan­dem­ic only made things worse, as par­ents jug­gled the stress­es of help­ing their kids nav­i­gate online school­ing while they had to work from home. All of which makes Car­la Naumburg’s new book utter­ly nec­es­sary. Author of How to Stop Los­ing Your Sh*t with Your Kids, Naum­burg deliv­ers her mes­sage right up front—You Are Not a Sh*tty Par­ent—that all par­ents need to hear and believe in. The fact is, great par­ent­ing is not the same thing as per­fect par­ent­ing. Great par­ent­ing starts with true self-com­pas­sion, the kind that means you don’t judge your­self. Har­ness­ing this self-com­pas­sion is the key to giv­ing your­self a break and embrac­ing your best qual­i­ties as a par­ent. There are four evi­dence-based ele­ments of self-com­pas­sion – notic­ing, con­nec­tion, curios­i­ty, and com­pas­sion of course — and Naum­burg gives tan­gi­ble steps for how to use each to help par­ents reduce their anx­i­ety, trust their instincts, move past the guilt and become a calmer, more con­fi­dent parent.