There's No Such Thing as a Perfect Parent
Parenting can be challenging and even frustrating. It’s hard to know if you’re doing the right things and making wise choices that will benefit your children. It can sometimes feel like there’s no good answer for many of the parenting situations you find yourself in.
In parenting, as in the rest of life, perfection isn’t a possibility. Do your best and shoot for excellence, instead!
Use these tips to accept your flaws and be the best parent you can be:
No one teaches you how to be a great parent. You learn a lot of things in school, but parenting skills aren’t commonly covered. You can read a book, observe others, or make it up as you go along.
Parenting fluctuates from child to child, it is not a one size fits all, that wouldn’t be great parenting
Being a great parent isn’t easy. This is easy to prove to yourself by looking at all the poor examples of parents you’ve known.
Learn from your own parents. Whether your parents were spectacular, mediocre, or terrible, there is something that you can learn from them.
Think about what your parents did well.
Consider the ways in which your parents failed.
There is a lot of good information you can use from your childhood. Discuss this with your siblings if they’re willing or even your parents or grandparents if you have that relationship with them. You may be surprised the insight they may have as they were just figuring it out as well.
Ask for feedback from your children. Tell your kids that you want to be a better parent and have a conversation with them. Ask them open ended questions that allow you to get to know them better and understand their needs from you. You might hear a few things you’ve never considered.
Ignore the non-experts. Everyone you meet will have an opinion about how to better parent children. Plenty of those people will give you advice without you asking for it. Everyone likes to be an armchair quarterback. Consider their feedback but make your own decision about whether to implement their ideas. You should know your children better than the next person, so be attentive to the gift God gave you and use discernment from there.
Cover the basics. These may be basic, but that doesn’t mean that they’re easy! Do your best to ensure that your kids see these concepts in action.
Children and everyone else need to have high self-esteem. Life is miserable and limiting without it.
School matters. Help your child to do as well as they can in school. Good students have more opportunities.
Be a good role model. Your children are always watching you.
Money matters. Love is great, but it won’t pay the rent, buy shoes, or pay for the doctor. Spend your working day trying to maximize your income. You are also teaching them a good work ethic and good stewardship.
Keep them safe.
Teach them the important things. Teach them the importance of saving money, how to make friends, how to deal with negative emotions, be honest, and other things that speak to your values.
Spend time with them each day. We spend time on the things that matter. When you ignore your children, they know they don’t matter.
Love unconditionally. Show your children that you love them even when they make mistakes.
You can do everything right and still have challenges. Children aren’t plants. You can’t be guaranteed of success just by adding some water and fertilizer. Each child is different. You could be as perfect as humanly possible and still have a child that struggles.
Read. Parenting is one of the most researched areas of study in the world. There are a lot of great books that all parents can read and use.
Encouragement. Help them understand how valuable they are and to try new things. In this they can see their strengths and weaknesses, find what inspires them and what doesn’t grow them. Encourage your child to seek their dreams, to understand and know who they are and to have purpose and live intentionally. This will help them to love and accept themselves while encouraging them to continue to grow and know who they are in confidence.
Pray. A family that prays together, stays together. The gift of relationship with our Heavenly Father will give them the strongest foundation to grow on. There is much warfare as a parent as there is for a child in the world that we live in. Teach them where our strength and identity comes from, the earlier this is implemented, the stronger the foundation.
No parent can be perfect. You’re doomed to feel like a failure if perfection is your goal. Fortunately, kids are quite resilient and don’t require perfect parenting. Keep doing your best and trying to improve. Be the best parent you can be, and your children will eventually thank you for it. We are called to raise up our children, not the world. To be a great parent means to be a practicing one. Just like everything else in life, it takes consistency and intentionality in how we live in each moment. What we witness can be the biggest piece, but we weren’t meant to do this alone 😉
