What Makes a Successful Parent?

I’ve heard a lot of stories of late about teenagers in trouble. You name it, they’re doing it. And along with these teens come parents: hurting, scared, angry. The parents want their child to behave; the teen just wants to be left alone (at least, so they say). It’s a recipe for disaster.

I’ve also been thinking about how we define a successful parent. Is it the degree of religiosity of the child? The schools they attend? The color of their clothing, or the style of dress? Who they marry, or the number of grandchildren they produce?

Now, I’m not going to offer some cure-all advice in a short blog post. Parenting nowadays is complex, and every situation needs to be dealt with individually. Each child needs their own approach, a balance between friendly and firm parenting. But I will offer one thought: We need to relax our definitions of success.

We have our standards, and we have our values. We don’t like to see our children opt out of moral and religious ideals that we hold dear. And so we say something to let them know we are displeased. And we say another thing. And another. We say as much as we think we have to so that they’ll get it.

And they do get it. Boy, do they. 

Parenting books like to say that kids need to hear twice as many positive comments as they do negative. Some say three time as many, some say even four. They’re all right. Kids internalize all the messages we say to them. They even internalize our body language. And I fear that the message kids are internalizing, through all the well-meaning direction, is that they are not enough. That is never what we mean. But that’s always what they hear.

Let’s broaden our definitions of parental success. Let’s define success as raising kids who are happy and emotionally healthy. Of course, we want them to follow our values. And hopefully they will. Here’s a little secret - the happier and healthier our children are, the better equipped they are to make their own healthy decisions. And if we live and share our values in a positive way, our kids will likely want to follow.