Parenting 101

I have some catching up to do. Pictures from Pioneer Day, more pictures and stories from our trip to Idaho. But I wanted to share this, oh blessed 2 readers.

I'm no expert on parenting. Trent and I have attended Love & Logic classes, read books and said many a prayer in an effort to help us be good parents. My favorite resources are from the general authorities from our church - I find their thoughts to be the most useful. But today I stumbled upon a random article that provided some additional food for thought. The timing was almost comical.

I was on the computer perusing the Parks and Recreation website, trying to decide which classes to enroll my budding athletes and musicians into, I noticed that most of my preferred classes were already full. Bummer. As I continued to surf the web a bit, I landed at a blog I frequent, CJane. I hadn't read her blog for a while so I skimmed through older posts and ran into this article.

How to Land Your Kid in Therapy

Be forewarned, there is one curse word at the very beginning.

I thought I'd just skim the article, but ended up reading it very intently. I'm not saying I agree with it in it's entirety, but it did give me something to think about.

Here was one of my favorite excerpts near the end of the article:
We can expose our kids to art, but we can’t teach them creativity. We can try to protect them from nasty classmates and bad grades and all kinds of rejection and their own limitations, but eventually they will bump up against these things anyway. In fact, by trying so hard to provide the perfectly happy childhood, we’re just making it harder for our kids to actually grow up. Maybe we parents are the ones who have some growing up to do—and some letting go.

I want my kids to be happy and well rounded as much as the next person, but I also want them to be able to function independently and realistically. And truthfully, life isn't happy all the time. Here's hoping that somewhere along the way I remember to let my kids learn from failure, that I let them problem solve a bit without interfering - including financially, and that I remember to cut the apron strings in a timely manner.

Check back with me in 20 years and see how I'm doing. :)