How Not to Parent

You know what it’s like when you have something happen in your personal life, and you REALLY want to write about it, but you know there is no way to do so without making things worse?

Yeah, me neither.

On a completely unrelated topic, I want to write today about parenting, and more specifically things I believe a parent should never do. I should also clarify that I am looking at parents with children who are either adults or near adults. This is what it means to be a parent from my perspective.

Here’s my list of what NOT to do:

• Call your child names. Parenting 101 tells you to focus on the behavior, not the person. “I don’t hate you, but I don’t like what you did.” Doesn’t matter what your kid does, there is no justification for telling them they are a liar, a cheat, lazy, stupid, or anything like that. Certainly tell them you don’t like what they’ve done, but don’t tell them it defines who they are.
• Tell your child they aren’t welcome. No matter what your child does, you should always let them come home. There is no circumstance that justifies telling them they are not wanted.
• Believe what you hear about them without verification. If someone tells you something about your child, you should always check with them and hear their perspective. There are always at least two sides to every story, and your child’s side should be heard before you come to any judgement about the situation.
• Assume you are any more adult than they are. Kids grow up fast, and biology tells us that the brain is fully matured at 25, so despite the fact that we’d all like to believe we continue to become more adult the older we get, it is not necessarily true. We are all imperfect beings, and to assume that we as parents are any more perfect than our kids is doing them a great disservice.
• Pretend to be perfect. Gone are the “Father Knows Best” days. Letting your kids think that you are without fault sets unrealistic expectations for them, and makes it more likely that they will feel ashamed when they don’t live up to that level of perceived perfection. Show your kids your flaws, so they can feel better about their own.
• Hold them to the same expectations as you have for yourself. This may seem like a direct contradiction to the previous two bullets, but despite the fact that your kids might actually be more mature and less imperfect than you are, you should still expect more out of yourself than you do of them. Whenever faced with a conflict or injustice, we’ve always told our kids that we expect them to take the high road or put forth the best effort even if they know the other party isn’t doing so, and it should be no different for parents. In a conflict, it is never justification to say you did something only because your kid did it first.
• Think you know them. How many of us feel our parents totally understand us? If we don’t really feel our parents every got us, why should we believe we totally understand our own children? Accept that there is no way to know your kids as well as you’d like to, and realize there is always the opportunity to get to know them better.
• Think they know you. How many of us feel we totally understand our parents? If your kid is an adult or near adult, then you should treat them that way, and share with them the ways that you are human and imperfect and confused, just like they are.
• Put yourself first. The analogy of strapping your own oxygen mask on before putting one on your child only extends to making sure that you are healthy enough in mind, body, and spirit to be an effective parent. Beyond that, your kids should always come first. When asked who is more important to you between yourself and your kids, the answer is always your kids.
• Let them doubt that you love them. Above all else, tell them you love them loudly and often. And not just with words, but also with your actions, your attention, your intention, and with every interaction. There should never be a doubt in their mind that you value them and are proud of who they are.

So, what do you think? Would you agree with my list? Anything to add or change?