The obsession with perfection among parents today feels like an unavoidable societal air. On social media, it seems like everyone is raising their children effortlessly, and the moment we compare those glamorous scenes with our daily lives, our hearts become rapidly exhausted. The world's standard that 'as a parent, you should do at least this much' turns pure love for our children into a heavy sense of debt. When we strive to meet that predetermined standard, even a slight feeling of inadequacy immediately raises guilt.
What is the reason many parents feel insufficient even though they are already trying hard enough? The Good-Being Inner School, a community for children's mental strength in Korea, has clearly witnessed that what truly exhausts parents is not the temperament of the child or the difficulty of parenting, but the invisible standard of 'having to be perfect' that is firmly established within the parents themselves. In a life where parents must score themselves daily to prove their competence, they are losing the very existence of themselves.
A New Parent Education that Helps Restore Existence
Good-Being Inner School presents a new paradigm of parent education that helps children, parents, and teachers exist well in their respective places. Here, Good-Being does not simply mean being better at parenting skills. It signifies a state of recovering the warmth of existence instead of pushing oneself.
This education is based on neuroscience research, including the body budget theory by neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett (2017) and the polyvagal theory by Stephen Porges. It is characterized by bringing the issue of parental burnout into the realm of safety in the body and nervous system, rather than the realm of willpower.
In the Age of AX, What Parents Need is Not Skills but Existence
In today's era of artificial intelligence transformation, information is overflowing, and parenting skills are becoming more sophisticated. However, paradoxically, parents feel greater confusion. In an age where machines replace human intelligence, what we truly need is not more refined parenting skills, but the unique power of human presence and connection.
The core content leader of Good-Being Inner School, Kim Sook-young, delves into this point in her book 『I Am Gently Embracing Myself Today』. This book does not teach how to correct a child. Instead, it quietly reveals the author's time when she was smiling on the outside while fearing mistakes and evaluations on the inside. It asks what kind of relationship a person has with themselves as a parent.
Starting with a 30-Day Practice Notebook to Embrace Myself
The practicality of this book goes beyond simple comfort to create a rhythm of real change. The '30-Day Practice Notebook' included at the back of the book is designed for readers to look into their hearts and record their thoughts. A small habit of listening to the voice within for 10 minutes a day and attempting a kind connection with oneself becomes a concrete soma training that enhances emotional resilience. Here, soma refers to the body that is lived and experienced from within, not the body that needs to be fixed, as philosopher Thomas Hanna (1986) described.
The author states that change does not come from becoming perfect, but from acknowledging the imperfect self. Do not forcibly suppress anxious and fearful emotions; instead, slowly transform them into hope. On days when life is hard and you dislike yourself, this book becomes the most reliable ally of your true self. In this regard, this book can be seen as content that articulates the philosophy of Good-Being Inner School, which is about living while becoming, in the most everyday language.
The Philosophy of Becoming: Parents Are Not Completed but Formed
The parent education of Good-Being Inner School aligns with the philosophy of becoming by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. Deleuze did not see humans as fixed identities or completed states. Becoming a parent is not a qualification that is obtained by reaching a specific standard. A parent is a being that is constantly formed in the process of living with a child, hesitating and suffering, yet continuing each day.
Even if not perfect, being by the child's side, and even without certainty, taking a breath and meeting the child's eyes during all those moments already makes a parent a parent. Life is not an object of evaluation but a beautiful movement that is already in progress, and parents are also beings that are reborn anew every day within that flow.
FIT-Parents: Parent Education Tailored to Each Life
Good-Being Inner School refers to such parents as FIT-Parents. Originally, FIT is derived from fitness, which means physical training, but Good-Being reinterprets it as a state optimized for each person's life and conditions. Just as fitness trains the muscles of the body, FIT-Parents train the strength of the mind to ensure they do not lose themselves in any situation.
Here, FIT is not about fitting oneself into the right answer, but the power to adjust life according to one's unique temperament and situation, as well as the child's characteristics. Some parents become parents through firmness, some through patience, and some through their own ways amidst mistakes.
FIT is not about matching oneself to the right answer but about adjusting life according to one's unique temperament and situation, as well as the child's characteristics. Some parents become parents through firmness, some through patience, and some through their own ways amidst mistakes.
The power of adjustment is to look back at the current environment of this moment, and to realign the person I am with the child and the environment we live in. (Kristof, 1996)
Feel, Stay Together, and Turn Back (FIT)
Good-Being Inner School proposes a core rhythm of three stages for parental recovery.
Feel (Feeling) - Instead of trying to solve problems, first listen to the inner signals felt in your body. Check if your breath is shallow or if your chest feels tight. Instead of the conceptual names of anxiety or anger, when you call your state with detailed soma language like tightness, pressure, or coolness, our bodies begin to feel understood and start to release tension.
Stay Together (Inter-being) - It is to be with the current self without trying to eliminate the felt sensations. Do not push away the tired and anxious self, but choose connection instead of self-blame. When you stay with your imperfect self as you are now, you finally gain the space to be fully present with your child.
Turn Back (Turning Back) - When you make a mistake, do not dwell on blame, but take a breath and return to this moment. The important thing is not to remain unshaken, but to recover the power of circulation that allows you to return to yourself at any time through a single breath and pause.
It's Okay Not to Be Perfect
Parental burnout is not a matter of will but a depletion of the body budget. Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett explains that when the body budget runs low, anxiety, anger, and self-blame increase sharply.
Life is not a qualification to be completed, but a process of constantly becoming while living with a child. If someone tells us that it's okay not to be perfect, we may already be living well enough. Good-Being Inner School quietly opens the place where that breath returns and waits for you. It's okay not to try hard. You are already enough just by being in the process of becoming.
