The Best Parenting Advice.
“The hardest part about being a good parent is being the person you want them to be.” This is the best parenting advice I have ever heard, and I have no idea where I heard it. I want to say it was on the “Still Untitled” podcast with Adam Savage, but I don't know for sure. Isn't that just the most real thing you've ever heard though?
As humans, we tend to over complicate things that can be simple. I believe parenting is one of them. Don't get me wrong, I know there are challenging times, but when it comes to how to raise your child I feel like people don't realize it is this simple. Your kids will be most influenced by how you behave. We are constantly programming our children, every second that they are with us. What is probably most troubling is that anybody else your children are with regularly is also programming them with their behaviors. Don't you remember wanting to be like your parents, or a cool relative, or your babysitter, or even that cool kid at school? Do you remember trying out their words and mannerisms to see how they fit? Cliche sayings like “monkey see monkey do” are cliche because they are real. Cliche means it stood the test of time. On top of this, we all know that “do what I say, not what I do” never works. Words are as a match to the solar brilliance of actions.
Children mimic us, anybody with kids has seen this, and kids are watching us and learning from our actions as soon as they are born. They shake their bottle, because they see you do it. They try to comb their hair, because you do it. They pretend to be on the phone, because they see you use the phone. They want to scoop their own food with a spoon, because that is what you do. This is a beautiful thing, and every time I see my daughter trying to do a new thing, it brings a tear to my eye. It is the most amazing thing to see this little human learning and growing, trying new things, getting back up after a fall to try again because the word failure doesn't exist yet. Children are the most precious thing on this planet, so we should take care in how we program them. And how do we program them? They do what they see. They say what they hear. It bears repeating. Every moment a child is with us, they are learning from us. Every second we are with them, we are programming them.
Be the person you want them to be.