Here’s what I know about raising kids. You had better expect them to make mistakes because they will and that’s when parents really have to step up to the plate. Remember teaching them to brush their teeth. At first they ate the toothpaste, eventually they learned the up & down motion and finally they figured it out. Twice a day every day. It wasn’t an overnight success. Nothing is with parenting. Remember potty training, eating with utensils, and looking before you cross the street. You never thought they’d get it but with practice, reminders and many mistakes they did. As a parent, if you expect instant results you’re setting yourself up for frustration. These lessons take years to teach and learn.
When adolescence approaches most parents are feeling pretty good. By the time our children head into this phase of their lives the easy lessons of proper hygiene, treating others with kindness and taking responsibility have begun to sink in. But the easy part is over. At home your once delightful daughter may be surly and eye rolling. Your once exuberant son may respond with only grunts and silence. You won’t necessarily witness the evidence that your son or daughter was paying any attention to all those years of instruction. The instances of holding the door for a teacher, or helping clear the dinner table when over at a friend’s house often won’t happen when you’re around. You might not see the fruit of your labors at all. In fact, those early lessons were just a start. They become the foundation for the real challenges of preparing them for adulthood.
More often the decisions facing teens are those that involve friends, technology, drugs and sex, and, again, they are going to make mistakes. This is why these are the years when our children really need us. These are the years when the mistakes are many and the consequences can be life changing. The stakes are higher. The slip-ups made in these years and how you, as a parent handle them, shape these young, enthusiastic, reckless, exasperating, charming individuals into adults. We, as parents, need to be even more patient, creative, and present than we were in those early years. And as hard as it may be, we as parents need to Find the Zen of allowing them to have some lapses in judgment. We need to remember that years ago when our daughters and sons were taking their first steps they learned how to pick themselves up only after they had fallen. Our job was to be there to guide them when and if they needed us. In fact, it seems that our job as parents doesn’t change that much after all.
