Parenting

It's 'back to school' time. Time to refocus on kids, I guess, for there have been a lot of feature articles on my newspage about parenting lately. A recent one was about paying kids for getting good grades in school; another was about how kids behave in public and whether parents should have to rein them in (or are we just becoming a kid-intolerant society, we are asked?) Boy, parents have a job to do, don't they? And there is no shortage of advice about how they should do it.

I've been reading 'advice on parenting' articles for 35 years now and have concluded that anyone who takes them seriously needs to, well, seriously reconsider. Who writes this stuff?

Now I can't resist. So here's my shot at it... (Not that you should take this seriously or anything.)

My 'guiding principle' for childrearing: Raise your children to become successful, happy adults.

Are you laughing at me? Did I just say something too obvious and completely un-helpful?

Let me try again then. In two parts. Numbered, if you will:

1. You have to actively 'raise' your children, practically all the time. Everything is an opportunity for guidance and learning, and there is no time like NOW to take advantage of that opportunity.
2. You have to understand what the end goal is, and always work toward it.

In 'education-speak' that end goal boils down to knowing what they (successful, happy adults) have to know and be able to do in order to BE successful, happy adults. MY list, just off the top of my head here, includes:

• be responsible for your own happiness and pursue it with enthusiasm
• be considerate of others
• be able to motivate yourself and delay gratification appropriately
• be goal-directed; able to set goals, develop plans to achieve them, actually take action, and then evaluate your progress and try again
• know how to look for help when you need it
• understand and manage your emotions so that they express you, not control you
• be flexible
• take care of yourself
• ... hmmmmm... and I'm sure there's more

OK, that's the second part - here's back to the first part: I think too many parents hope their children will become successful, happy adults without giving any daily consideration, from earliest childhood, to how they are going to get them there. Children can't easily cross an imaginary line at some point when they are suddenly expected to be an adult - with all the skills and responsibilities and good habits thereto. It's not fair to spring that on them! They have to be able to develop those 'habits' from the beginning - when habits are most likely to develop and take hold anyway. And that means actively teaching them about having choices and making decisions and interacting with others. Give them the words, the actions, the emotional tags, the decision-making processes - all the specific tools - to deal with things the way they will need to deal with them when they are older.

They will grow up confident and capable and self-reliant. Happy successful adults. Mostly anyway.

Seriously.