To put it bluntly: Parenting is impossible.
There is no way a flawed human can raise a non-flawed child. The goal of parenting has to be something attainable, but unfortunately most of us parent primarily out of opposition.
“I don’t want ‘xyz’ for my kids…”
“I hope they don’t …”
“I wish they wouldn’t …”
Oppositional living has far more to do with what we are afraid of happening in life, than what it is that we actually desire to have happen. And as is typically the case, what we focus on is typically what we end up accomplishing.
Some common pitfalls of parenting:
- Spending too much time and energy on what or who we *don’t* want our kids to become.
- Focusing more on behavioral issues over character development.
- Expecting more from kids than what is developmentally appropriate. The parent needs to be the adult, not the kid.
- Mature parents raise mature kids. Immature parents raise immature kids. Truth is we are all both mature and immature parents.
- Trying to accomplish too much too quickly.
- Saying more than doing. Kids don’t listen as much to words as they do to actions.
- Not letting kids fail and/or succeed … which confronts that mom/dad are sometimes right, and sometimes wrong.
