Parenting and Understanding
Life seems to push us along. Our dreams, goals, and who we want to be all influenced by what life throws at us. I never knew what I wanted to be as a kid. We go to school because we have to, some of us go to college next, because that’s the next step. After high school we’re expected to know what we want to be. To decide the path of our life when we have no idea what real life is like. It’s tough. As parents, and teachers we push others towards a goal, focusing on what they want to be. We forget the most important factor of who they want to be. We get lost in the shuffle, of good college, good job, salary, house, kids, retirement… the list goes on and on. We try to aim our children at a destination (which continually changes), instead of worrying about the person taking the ride.
We all need to remember the road is long and our kids need to have a solid foundation to deal with the obstacles on it. They’re going to screw up, we all did. We need them to understand who they are, not simply the correct way to behave. Behavior is a piece of it, but as parents we often worry about the behavior because of how society will view them. We need to worry about their self-confidence, their dreams, their wants, the reasons for their actions. Why are they angry? Let’s not hammer them about the way they show it, find out why, teach them to deal with it. Then punish the behavior as is fitting with whatever your house’s rules are. How do we make sure they are doing what they need to? Being the best them they can be? They’ll get to whatever job awaits them. The question is will they be proud of who they are and how they got there.