I wrote a few weeks ago about learning from our own experiences as parents and looking back and deciding what we would and wouldn’t do if we had it to do all over again. This morning, I am thinking about advice–all that solicited and unsolicited advice we receive as parents. What was the best parenting advice YOU ever received?
Since I’ve been at this a while, I’ve received all sorts of suggestions and advice, many of it really didn’t pertain to my kids, or my parenting style, or even life in the twenty-first century. Other advice, however, was applicable, helpful, and “stuck.” One bit of advice that I’ve received from more than one mentoring parent is “Pick your battles.” This has been especially helpful in the adolescent and teenage years. It’s helped me to hone in on what really matters and just let the rest unfold on its own.
My other favorite piece of advice is to “not do anything for the kids they can do themselves.” This started with letting them feed and dress themselves as soon as they were able, and has moved right up to letting them do their own clothes shopping, cooking, and helping with the grocery shopping. It not only encourages independence and self-reliance in the children, but it helps a parent learn how to let go in pieces and chunks over time.
Years ago, my own mother offered me words of wisdom that I have carried through with me as a parent. They weren’t really advice, but more of a guiding statement–she told me that children were their own people and they were going to be who they were going to be. It sounded like a simple cop-out at the time, but now that I’ve watched them grow into their own individual people DESPITE all my efforts to turn them in to who I thought they should be, I see that she was absolutely right.
Are you willing to share your own “words of wisdom”? What was the best parenting advice YOU ever received?