How can making decisions as a parent be much easier?

If you find yourself stuck in situations as a parent, not knowing how to guide your child through a problem, not knowing what kind of discipline is the right thing for you, your kid, your family.  Not knowing how to figure out what time or structure to build around bedtime or set a curfew or make/enforce ground rules or chores or an allowance or a generally just a throughline of guidance for navigating this journey; you may be missing a grounding philosophy that speaks to you, resonates as the guiding light, and help give you a compass as you walk through each uncharted area.

What do I mean by a grounding philosophy?  A core value system.  A foundation of beliefs that you stand on, that are unwavering and always feel like the right thing.  Some people form this with pieces of their community, family values they were raised with, religion, friend group, all kinds of places.  If you don't feel like you really have this, it is never too late to build one.

Start by having a conversation with yourself.  What are your non-negotiables in terms of behaviors, decisions, and outcomes that are 'right' and 'wrong'.  How are we defining 'right' and 'wrong' - you could make it as simple as things that lead to people experiencing joy vs. things that lead to a path of human suffering.  Once you have your framework on all the things that are acceptable and unacceptable to you, you can start to see if that aligns to any established philosophies.

Through the lens of parenting philosophies there are few currently widely in play.  The most new and prevalent parenting philosophy is 'soft or gentle parenting'.  This involves never really telling your kid no, coddling them in a friendly positive way, always remaining their best friend and keeping a fun nice vibe, sheltering them from challenges and disappointment, ensuring they don't experience any unnecessary pain (leading to such applications as 'helicopter parenting' where the parent constantly hovers over the child while they play to scoop them up before they fall and get a scrape on their knee).

At the other extreme, we have what I'll call 'old school' parenting.  This is what baby-boomers often did, and how many Gen X kids were raised.  It was hands off.  Not at home.  Kids playing with kids unsupervised.  When you play a game there are winners and losers - and only the winner gets a trophy.  Saying no without explanation.  Disciplining perhaps with a physical element, like spanking or washing out a mouth with a soap bar.  Grounding, time outs, all kinds of consequences.

There is a happy medium, which for lack of a better phrase, I will call French parenting.  In France, there is a wide belief that children should grow up with the freedom to explore the world and follow their own wonder and curiosity.  There's also a belief that parents have the right to their own time and their own lives.  This plays out in many ways that look different from many American families today. 

A French family has their baby sleeping through the night at 6 weeks old.  Every night at 8p, the baby goes to sleep and wakes up at 8a.  The parents have lots of consistent quiet time to themselves daily, and are completely rested.  This schedule persists throughout their childhood where at 8p the kid or teenager is in their room doing what they like but knowing this is their time and their parents separate time. 

A French parent taking a young child to a park for the morning will not have a ton of stuff.  The parent may bring a blanket and a small ball.  The child will be left to play on it's own, follow it's one exploration instincts and the parent will make sure to watch them carefully from a distance, ensure they feel free, and only stepping in quickly if they need to be helped/avoid serious harm.

A French parent greatly prioritizes variety of foods, and this is widespread in the culture so that every daycare center "creches" make serious efforts to put a wide variety of French foods, cheese, vegetables, all kinds of flavors in front of the kids each day.  Picky eaters isn't a thing in that culture.

These are 3 examples of philosophy-based parenting.  If any of them resonate, there's a ocean of internet and paper book resources to dig deeper and learn more.  If none of them sound good, there are many others out there - and you can always do the work to create your own.

The point is, once you feel grounded in a solid approach to what is means to you to be a parent and your philosophy of raising children is sound - all of the decisions you have to make have a build-in guide, and everything becomes simpler.