The other day I shared a meal with a gentleman who is a little further along in his life’s journey than I am. I have a child who just started high school; his five kids are in the early stages of their careers. This guy is a high achiever and so are his kids. Most importantly, they are all GOOD people. I asked him what pointers he had for raising kids.
- He said he told his kids, “Plan A is for you to make good decisions. Plan B is: I don’t have one.”
- As a corollary, he explained that it was important to encourage and to support his kids in what they wanted to do, not to pressure them into doing what he thought they should do.
- Finally, he said, as a parent “Don’t do anything bad.”
As to plan A, I appreciate that it empowers the child and stresses the importance of making good decisions. The ability to make good decisions will serve a child throughout life. Encouraging the child in what he likes makes sense to me; there are too many messed up children who become messed up adults because their parents were too controlling and trying to live vicariously through their offspring. Finally, the advice for the parent to avoid anything “bad” is paradoxically deep in its simplicity. We all know when we are about to do or say something “bad” that likely will backfire and could scar a parent-child relationship for a long time. Making “Don’t do anything bad” a tenet can head off painful mistakes.
With Love,
P. Gustav Mueller, author of The Present