It’s so hard for me to say that I feel proud of myself. The closest I have come is how I feel as a father and a husband. I am always quick to find something wrong though.
 
When I talk about pride, I mean feeling good about something, acknowledging and validating my efforts and pausing and taking a step back to cheer myself on. I have no problem doing this for my kids, or for the people I work with, or for anyone else, for that matter.
 
I think a big part of my resistance is that it started way back when as a protective mechanism. If I didn’t show others that I felt good about something, I wasn’t subjecting myself to criticism and rejection. It is something that I learned as a child and have continued to practice until today.
 
One thing that I have learned as a parent regarding praise is to focus on the process and not the outcome. Here’s an example of something that just happened this morning with my son, Eric.

​I’m a clinical psychologist and couple’s therapist. My site, Love After Kids, helps couples reconnect and strengthen their relationships while raising children. My regular articles and posts are naturally related to relationships and parenting, but every now and then I write about another topic close to my heart, living, relating and parenting with a chronic illness.
 
I have a type of muscular dystrophy called FacioScapuloHumeral Muscular Dystrophy (FSHD). It’s a dominant degenerative genetic disorder that leads to progressive skeletal muscle loss over time. Currently, there is no treatment or cure. Although they are working on it, the pathogenesis of FSHD is quite complex.
 
I knew about my diagnosis from before I can remember. One of my earliest memories is of being in my pediatrician’s office and the doctor having me squat and walk, testing how I was impacted at that point in time. I knew something was different. I knew even then that I was not “normal”.

My three-year-old, Emma, has been pretty explosive of late. You never know what you're going to get when you open her door. 

Sometimes she hides under her blanket and waits for me to pretend I cannot see her, so I ask where she is. 

Sometimes she calls me in and asks me to read her a book.

Sometimes she engages me in an imaginary role-play where I'm Jackie Paper and she is Puff the Magic Dragon.

Sometimes, well, she really can be a dragon, and when I open the door, she'll breathe fire at me and tell me to get out in the most convincing Poltergeist voice a three-year-old can muster. 

When this happens, she is often dysregulated, having a combination of feelings and bodily sensations that she doesn't know what to do with. It gets vomited out and is as unpleasant for me as it must be for her. 

One thing that gets to her is when she feels imposed upon, i.e. trying to take her out of her bed when she isn't ready, or, opening the curtains when she wants them closed.