What's a Parent's Role?

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The term "expert" causes a fallacy that parenting is a skill that can be mastered.

Research demonstrates that parents struggle to trust their parenting decisions due to external pressures.

Expertise in different areas of parenting does not mean someone understands your child better than you do.

I am going to say something controversial. There is no such thing as a child expert. Even further, there is no such thing as a parenting expert.

Calling someone a child expert is a flawed statement. Children are fallible, inconsistent, and unique. Children are human. And no one has ever called themselves a “human expert.”

This statement may seem strange coming from me. I have spent almost a decade working with children and families as a play therapist, I have a Ph.D. in counselor education with a concentration in play therapy, and I spend a lot of my time supporting, studying, and writing about parents. I may have expertise in child development, parenting strategies, and children's mental health, but I am not an expert on children or parenting.

I have recently begun to grow my following on social media, and an unexpected discovery of this endeavor has been to come across thousands of profiles with the title “parenting expert.” A quick search of the hashtag “parenting” yields more than 25 million posts. Though not all claim to be the silver bullet to conquer your parenting challenges, many do offer guidance and support wrapped in a bow of expertise and judgment. Though many of these accounts have credentials, education, and experience that do meaningfully back up their claims, this influx of parenting experts may have unintended consequences for caregivers who are already in the trenches and questioning their every move.

The Unintended Consequences of Parent Experts

The terms “parent expert” or “child expert” create a false narrative that becoming an expert is a possible destination that parents can reach. If you read enough, study enough, or buy a course, you, too, could also master parenting. But parenting is not a skill that can be mastered. Parenting is a moving target, so as soon as you master one skill, your child’s needs change. And on the continuum of parenting, your role in your child’s life is ever-evolving. Your toddler requires a different type of parent than your teenager does.

Children are also not a one-size-fits-all problem. For example, I may provide parenting feedback to one parent that I would never in a million years suggest to another because their two children are completely different. In fact, parents of multiple children find that parenting siblings often requires two very different approaches. So parenting experts who boldly boast that “This one parenting skill is guaranteed to help your child” are ignoring the humanity and individuality of children.

Where does this leave parents? A 2020 study found that parents struggle to trust their parenting decisions and often feel the need to justify their decisions as a result of external pressure (Levesque et al., 2020). Furthermore, parents in this study stated that they were often impacted by societal norms and pressure. Though this study did not name it specifically, social media "child experts” and “parenting expertise” drive this pressure and leave many of us feeling like no decision is correct. I personally remember feeling paralyzed with uncertainty when making the decision to feed my baby solids due to the polarizing feud online between baby-led weaning and purees. I often reminisce that my own mother always seemed so sure of her parenting decisions, and I envy that confidence. I imagine I have fallen victim to the “parenting expert” fallacy as well.

Parents can recognize that credentials and experience afford expertise in different areas of parenting and children. For example, someone may be a child development expert or sleep training expert, but that doesn’t mean that they understand your child better than you do.

As parents, we can think critically about information that may provide a one-size-fits-all approach and recognize that it is impossible to give parenting advice that works for all children. Rather, trust that you know your child best. You know their quirks, desires, and dreams, and though some of these parenting skills may help in moments of tantrums or when debating when to interfere with their ability to make friends, know that your child is a unique individual, and sometimes, the best advice is to just “trust your gut.”

What's a Parent's Role?

Take our Authoritative Parenting Test

Find a family therapist near me

Lévesque, S., Bisson, V., Charton, L., & Fernet, M. (2020). Parenting and Relational Well-being During the Transition to Parenthood: Challenges for First-time Parents. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 29(7), 1938–1956. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-020-01727-z

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