Parenting "The Right Way"

I’ve been inspired by a group of young moms I had the privilege of spending time with recently. Inspired to take a step back and remember what it was like with little ones underfoot and on my hip. With the first child we read every book, took classes and parented with a strict force. Of course we had a passive child who responded well to all of it too. Then number two came along with a passion for life and moving in all directions and suddenly everything that worked on number one didn’t work on number two. By the time the third kid came along, we’d really mellowed.

The first time around you are so afraid of doing it wrong that it’s common to over parent; to set the bar of expectations high. Then you start to realize that it’s really okay to breathe, take some time out for yourself and know you do the best you can with what you know and when you discover something new you change. So when daughter number two complained this summer about how we let child number three “get away with everything” and the oldest chimed in too, they “had it so rough.” I let them know, the first one is the guinea pig and from there we learned to loosen the reins, that it was okay for them to stumble and figure out how to get back up and we discovered that being overly protective wasn’t necessarily in their best interest. We discovered with each child which battles were the ones worth fighting and let go of the rest.

We’re not perfect. We’re not always going to get it right. We’re doing the best we can with what we know. So basically my message to my kids was, “get over it.” You too can walk this path one day should you become a parent. And I'm telling you, you can look yourself in the mirror, pat yourself on the back and say, "I'm doing the best I can, and it's all okay .