January 2009 - The Best Parenting Advice

Recently I was sitting in our doctor's office with one child or the other and read a great article on "The Best Parenting Advice I've Ever Gotten." Each section was by a different person and they each told one piece of advice that had helped them through some tough times or just every day with their children. It got me thinking about some of the great advice that I have received and the strange places some of it came from.

Spare the rod and spoil the child is not a command. It is a warning. If you spare the rod you will spoil the child. This does not necessarily advocate corporal punishment, but it reminds us that it is our responsibility to let our children know that we love them by setting limits, limits with consequences. Knowing there are consequences for your actions is basic of life skill that our children cannot do without. The sooner children learn this simple fact the better. This piece of advice came from a friendly Bible scholar.

Respect goes both ways. A child learns how to respect others by how their folks show them and each other respect. If you want your child to respect you, you have to show him appropriate respect. We have to earn theirs, just like they have to earn ours. Being a parent is an automatic license for respect. Showing respect for your self by how you act and what you do and say lets your children know a lot more about what respect means to you than any long speech or Disney movie. This came from an aging co-worker who was watching me with my infant son and wished us well as we moved away.

Sometimes when your children talk to you they are not looking for advice and definitely not judgment, just an ear and your unconditional love. When children have problems or just feel frustrated or confused about what is going on in their lives they often just need a sounding board, someone to listen without judging their action or decisions and without offering the parental solution. I did not understand this at all...until my oldest became a teenager last month. There are times he just needs to sound life out and some of those talks are among my most treasured moments spent with him. This advice came from an unmarried, childless, 20 something physicians assistant.

Last, but certainly not least, "I believe in a boy makin' up his own mind. Don't you?" This has helped me more times than I can count. Whenever possible I allow my children to make up their own minds if a bad decision is not going to be life threatening or will not cause damage to their future. It is our responsibility as parents to help insure that our children have the appropriate facts in order to make their own decisions, but ultimately they will have to make them themselves. As they get older, this advice has come in quite handy and is working quite well. One way to increase the probability of better decisions as they get older is to help them understand how the make good decisions when they are little. This advice came from a well-groomed mountain man.

Thank you to all those who have contributed to the bank of parenting knowledge I have gathered over the years. Although some of these folks may never read this as they are scattered up and down the eastern seaboard of the U.S., I hope they are as blessed by their advice as I have been.