Circle of Life

Had what I call a circle of life experience today. My daughter had her first swim meet today. Summer swim team was an annual experience my entire childhood. Packing for the event, going, setting up the whole routine brought back some of my fondest childhood memories. Only this time I wasn't the kid but the parent. I was experiencing the same activity from the parents point of view. It's very weird actually.

Where you were the kid doing everything you can to lose you LAME parent, you are now the LAME parent trying to show as much support as you can outside to match the amount of excitement and pride you feel inside. All that gets you is the LAME parent label and a lot of "Mom you are embarrassing me!" from said child. All this got me thinking about parenting in general.

We have all said it as we were growing up. "When I have kids, I am never going to do that!". Well...now we have kids and how frequently do you find yourself stopping in your tracks and saying to yourself "I sound just like my parents!" Is that such a bad thing? How bad did you turn out really?

I am here to tell you that while I may not have understood or appreciated my Dad's efforts growing up, I turned out to be productive citizen and decent parent (so far). People in general do a lot of complaining about today's kids. How today's kids watch too much TV, are obese, disrespectful, lazy, entitled, the list can go on forever. Who's fault is that? Ours!

I ask you this...If you turned out to be relatively decent human being by at least maintaining Independence and a job then did you get what you needed from your parents?

The parenting job description is to love, care and raise your child so that they may be able to contribute to society and repeat the cycle for generations to come. If that's the case then your parents did their job. So the real question is are you?

You didn't like that you were punished for doing something wrong, but does that give you a healthy understanding of basic principles of decency? Yes. Why wouldn't the same thing work for your child? It would.

Our parents did the best they could with the resources they had. None of them are perfect, but on the whole they loved you unconditionally, put up with your tremendous attitude and here you are today fulfilling your destiny and what are you doing to maintain your end of the bargain with your kids?

I may be the mean parent, but there are many things I didn't like that my Dad did, I put them into play now.

The most obvious are:

• The word NO
• Consequences to breaking the rules
• Commanding respect of your elders
• Please and Thank you are not optional vocabulary words
• Chores are part of the rent you pay to live in the house
• Responsibility
• Expectation is high
• Competition is healthy

There are others that are less obvious, like courtesy, love, acceptance, encouragement, etc. All these things are required because children only know what they are shown. It is a rare child that understands the world and everything in it before you show them.

We aren't Nobel prize winning parents, just practical to a fault and trying as hard as we can to give our child the best opportunity for the life she is destined to have with the greatest success she can muster through her life experiences and training.

It's true what the experts say. Pay attention to what behaviour you are modeling because your children are watching.