Adventures in Parenting

While having lunch with a friend last week, we have kids the same age in college, the conversation inevitably turned to talking about our kids when they were little.

“There are a lot of things I did wrong when my kids were little,” my friend said. “If I could go back, I would do things differently.” I can relate to that. I certainly would do a whole lot of things differently!

But I bet that if we went back and did it again, we would still make mistakes, albeit different mistakes. We would wish to fix it a second time… and a third time….and a fourth…and if we were given an infinite number of re-dos, would we then be the perfect parent?

I doubt it. If that was true, our last child, with all the experiences gained from parenting the older children, would be perfect! (That certainly is not true! I am the youngest in my family!)

It is a Parenting Myth that if we do the right things, had we known better, or given more experience, we can be a perfect parent, and thus turn out perfect kids. While this blog talks about how we can be good parents and raise good kids, I hope it doesn’t give you the message that we can be perfect. We can read all the right parenting books, and apply every good  parenting technique,  and we will still make mistakes.

Depressing and discouraging? Not at all!

This is where grace comes in. I don’t mean your friend Grace, I mean God’s grace – that is, when we mess up, he picks up the pieces, and makes something beautiful out of the brokenness.

My son is 22 years old this year, and if his life was totally dependent on my parenting skills, he’d be in big trouble today! As my firstborn, I made plenty of mistakes – let’s not go there!

But I thank God, by His grace, my  son is on his way to be a man of compassion, integrity and character.

My encouragement to you is, don’t beat yourself over the head for being imperfect. Being imperfect is a fact of life.

Instead, put your trust in God to use you as an imperfect parent. Then pray for your children, and God will fill in the gaps.

Other Parenting Myths:

Parenting is an Instinct, They’ll Learn if I Keep Telling Them, and There is One Parenting Method that will Guarantee Success

It’s Your Fault – Another Parenting Myth