Parenting Goals

In my first blog entry I wrote about finding a middle ground in parenting, somewhere between overly involved and protective (helicopter parenting), and rigid, oppressive parenting, (as described in The Tiger Mom).  Last time I addressed the importance of being compassionate towards ourselves.  If we don’t love ourselves, it is hard to authentically love others.

Now I want to take a step back.  If we are thinking about any important goal, and are working to find the most effective ways to approach getting to those goals, we often start with defining what the desired outcome is that we are looking for.  When we explore approaches to parenting, we want to have pleasant, peaceful loving day-to-day lives (short term goals) and we are also trying to raise children who grow into successful adults. (long term goals)  The long term parenting outcome we are looking for is children who grow into successful adults.

We all have different ideas and expectations for our children about what success looks like based on our own history and culture-it’s a very personal thing.  But over all we want children who feel good about themselves and behave in a kind, compassionate and respectful way towards others.  We want them to care about family and friends, and strive to have strong such relationships in their lives.  We want them to be curious and interested in the world around them.  We want them to be able to work hard and be successful at work, to be resilient and to be capable of problem solving.  We want children who engage in their larger community and help others that are in need.

Every parent has their own unique hopes and dreams about their children but using this definition as an approximate desired outcome we are looking to achieve, how can we get there? What can we do as parents to help our children grow into responsible, mature, capable, happy adults?

I believe that “middle ground” parenting approach is the answer.  We need to be sensitive to self-esteem issues, by setting limits without shaming our children. We need to keep our children physically and emotionally safe but within that safe space allow them to try things, to experience disappointment, and sometimes to fail.  We need to provide a warm nurturing environment, but encourage independence.  I believe we do all this by listening empathetically, setting appropriate limits and boundaries, using positive discipline, and spending quality time with our children.  In this blog I will continue to explore how these approaches lead to both a more pleasant day-to-day life currently and also lead to the qualities we want to see in our children as they grow.