Perfect Parenting Made Easy

Anyone who had a perfect childhood please raise your hand. You are excused from this reading.

A wise man once said there are only two perfect families in America but they haven’t been found yet. It’s really hard to be a good parent, impossible to be a perfect parent. We can’t even agree on how to do it much less do it.

THEORY CONFUSION The currently accepted theories tend to move the state of the art of child rearing in the same general direction but there is no consensus on the details. Is it okay to spank? Do time-outs give the right message? Are appropriate consequences effective? When is the right bedtime? Do you give incentives for grades? Do you let your kids eat what they want? There are so many theories, do you pick one and stick with it or do you take the appealing parts from several? Maybe the wide choice of authorities makes you think none is really right, so you just do what feels right.

SOLUTION: There are many right ways to parent.  Don’t get hung up worrying about which right way.

APPLICATION CHALLENGE  Even if you are a true believer in a certain approach to child rearing and you’ve read every book on the subject, been to umpteen seminars, and review your notes every week, you still have the problem of applying the rules perfectly. Good luck! If you are omniscient and can time travel, it would be less challenging. John says Tom hit him in the head with a brick, and Tom says John fell off the slide. Your teenage ballerina is restricting her eating to keep her thinness for a series of performances that may get her the full ride scholarship to the school of her dreams. Your junior school child is hanging out with the wrong crowd.

SOLUTION: Do the best you can. That is hard enough.  If you are fortunate enough to believe in God, trust God to work it all out in the long run.

Perfect parenting is a fantasy held by people who haven’t raised kids. It’s also a dangerous dream on two counts. 1) If you think there is a perfect way you may not be willing to realize how complicated and difficult the job is. You might look for simple rigid answers. 2) You will go crazy expecting your kids to be perfect. It’s not going to happen. Good kids are possible. Perfect kids are not.

So, it’s easy.  Just give up on being perfect.