Are there any parenting experts out there? I ask because it seems that every parent I know, including my wife and myself, seems to be on a “work in progress” path to being a well-rounded parent. It’s been said so many times before, but why oh why don’t kids come with an owner’s manual? Ask most any parent and they’re likely to tell you that they are still trying to figure out what makes a “perfect child”. The fact is, we parents are incapable of “creating” perfection. Try as we might, every one of my children (yours too, come on) will leave home both an imperfect and an incomplete project. I know many parents that really struggle with the fact that their child has this or that flaw or that if only they had done this one parenting thing better, it all would turn out perfect. In my opinion, one trick to being a better parent is to accept that you can not make your kids perfect and to embrace that. Don’t get down on yourself or your child because they act up in public or don’t make the grades you wanted, or aren’t the star athlete. Your job is not to create perfection but to give children the basic core values that they can take out into the world to make their own decisions with. Trying to inoculate your child from every possibly harmful thing you can think of will not help them be prepared for the even greater number of things they will encounter in their life. Continue reading “Parenting Experts?”