Extracurricular Activities and Free Time – Over-scheduling to ensure that your child keeps up his or her resume and skill set with his or her peers is so tempting these days. EVERYONE is doing it. Also included in this assessment are the quality and quantity of television and video game consumption.
Friends – Friends are so very important to children and adults alike. How full should one’s calendar be in catering to play dates, sleepovers, and birthday parties before it goes overboard? Third party advice is definitely warranted in this area.
What would my rating be based on a critical assessment of my parenting in these areas? Somewhere between Mommie Dearest and Mother Teresa, I hope. Leaning more toward the latter, I pray. In absence of a performance evaluation, what I do now is try to identify a family that I admire and esteem in the results they have and are producing in their children. I am so fortunate to be surrounded in my neighborhood by many. It must be said that I know no family (real family, that is—there are several in TV-land like the Cleavers, the aforementioned Cosbys and Robert Youngs of Father Knows Best) that excel in all areas. No parent is perfect! I look at those who have a parenting style or result that I value and try to model my performance after them.
“Nobody ever said life was fair!” No, Joan Crawford, you got that one right but with a humble spirit, teachable heart, and desire to seek out positive parenting examples, maybe one has a more than fair chance at getting this thing called parenting right. Just maybe, we can then meet and even exceed expectations in a majority of our performance areas.
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