969 – Allow them to fail.

Giving your child room to fail allows them to grow. It also shows they are trusted. It teach them they can be trusted. Giving them space to try and fail is important.

An important part of this is in your reaction. Your reaction can not hold judgement or answers. It can not have a layer of “i told you so” or “see” (you know how “see” is said when said judgily).

That is how, not only kids, put people learn. Trial and error. Only, they will not get to the trial part if they do have a safe space to fail. Try. Fail. Repeat. Encouragement. Then again. And again. Then?

Let them lead. How are they feeling, what’s their reaction? Why are you even there? If you trust them, you give them space. If they don’t come to you, let it be. Whatever happened happened. Wait til they go to bed, then clean up. You can work on teaching them to clean up after the experience later. One thing at a time. For now. Safe space.

970 – Holiday’s can be a great opportunity to learn

There is the story we are told and the true story of how things came to be. Thanks to Microsoft’s Bing (yes, Bing), a great article popped up yesterday at work about the true origins of Easter. Immediately, printed and brought home for my daughter to read.

Turns out the story most know, isn’t the actual story. The roots, the origins, a little from column A, a little from column B. Then BAM! The modern mythology retold and repackaged.

This isn’t about Easter, or religion, or anything like that. This isn’t for or against religion, or Easter, or anything like that. This is about history and interesting true stories. Take the opportunity, to focus on an event, and explore it, print it, read about with your child.

This goes for the Fourth of July. Flag Day. Memorial Day. Labor Day. On and on. These stories. The real stories. The true stories are fabulously interesting, in most cases.

Plus, if you are open to it, you can discuss mythology, the origins of stories, how things change and modify over time. You can do all the things that have come to be associated with holiday “x” because, ya know most involve gifts. Yet, you can also learn and appreciate the origins of said holiday. That’s what we’ll do on what we’ve come to call Bunny Egg Day.

980 – Offer your child your coat (or hoodie)

My daughter insisted she didn’t need a coat. I disagreed and put on a zip up hoodie. Then, double checked to make sure she wouldn’t need something more than the shirt she was wearing. She insisted there was no need for anything more.

Shortly after this exchange, away from her coat, she said she was cold. I smiled. The gut reaction was to say, “I told you so” in some way. Pick your poison on which words could have been used to demean her, “teach her a lesson” or let her know she was wrong and I was right.

Instead, I paused… waited. Then asked, “would you like my hoodie?” To which she responded enthusiastically “yes!”. That was all that needed to happen. She knew everything that happened before. She knew there could have been an “I told you so” of varying degrees (I assume). Instead she received kindness. And a hoodie.

As for me? I was chilly. Yet, there now exists a few great pictures of my daughter looking cute in my hoodie. And an opportunity to show (teach) my daughter a nonjudgmental kindness. Worth it.

Next time you child is cold, no matter the reason, offer your child your coat, or hoodie, as the case may be.

981 – Ask for their opinion

This is their life. Our kids have views and thoughts. Wants and desires. When planning a trip, vacation, outing ask for their opinion. See what they would like to do. Where they would like to go. What they think would be fun.

Then, if it goes sideways, do not blame them for it. Do not say “but this is what you said you wanted.” There is a difference between holding accountable and blaming and shaming. This is where being the “adult” comes in. This is where you take the high road.

Things didn’t go as planned? Things didn’t work out the way you thought they could or should? You spent money that now feels wasted? Good.

Learn from this. Talk about it in the future for the next outing. Use it as an example to help on the next trip. They are a child and they thought they wanted “x” and you provided it. You gave them autonomy and choice.

I can hear and feel the doubts and questions and “yeah, buts” that so easily could be made in argument to this. YET… how many times did you mess up? Make a bad choice? Choose the wrong thing? Wasted money on something stupid? You acknowledge, recover, and move on. And if you didn’t. If a significant other pointed out your mistake, your bad choice, the wasted money, how did that make you feel?

One – Don’t do that. Learn from it. Help them develop an opinion muscle. Help them be able to share and express their opinions. Judgement and shaming will hole those opinions up and pack that independence up tight. Create wiggle room in your mind for things to go poorly. And know the investment is in them, not money, the vacation, or whatever your goal was.

982 – Talk about your family values. Create a mission statement.

Talk with your child about what matters to you. Ask them what matters to them. Create a conversation around the things that are important to all parties involved. Then, use that conversation as a springboard toward creating a family values / mission statement. Type it. Draw it. Collage it. Write it longhand. Make it fun.

Post it in a visible space. Make a practice of looking at it. Reading it together. Check in occasionally and see if anything should be or could be changed or adjusted as your child learns and grow. As you learn and grow. Keep a copy of the previous version and put it in a less conspicuous place. Occasionally look it over and talk about how and why values can and may change.

983 – Don’t wing it.

We go to school to learn to read, write and learn math (presumably). We are given on the job. We go to college to be able to work a better job (presumably). We take a driving class and take a test to get a license. Then we have to retake the test and get an eye exam every few years to renew it.

Parenting? Have a kid. There ya go. No follow-up. No test. No reexamination.

I am of the opinion there is no “right way”. No “better” or “best” way to raise a child. Yet, there are plenty of books that claim a better way to act, react, talk to, inform, deal with on and on. Read them. Read as many as you can. Listen to podcasts and audiobooks. No one makes you learn how to be a parent, but knowledge is power. The more you have to work with, the better your chance of making a better choice in the moment.

Don’t wing it. Work at it.

984 – Teach them they will fall down. No matter who they are. No matter their station in life. Falling down is part of life and is unavoidable.

Then teach them, no matter how many times they fall down, the only thing that matters is they get up once more than the number of times they fall.

985 – Show your child the joy of the simple things. The necessary things, which are, the simple things.

“A dress presented to you as a gift by the king may be beautiful, but your own simple dress is better. Different meals from the tables of the rich may be good, but a loaf of simple bread from your own table always tastes much better.” Muslih-Ud-Din Saadi

It seems more important now than ever. Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s and 90’s we weren’t exposed to the daily rich lives of others. There were always the “rich kids” or that one wealthy family, but we didn’t see their minute by minute daily lives.

Today kids are exposed to that. Today they see what they believe is the truth of the lives they don’t have. For me going to Disneyland wasn’t an option. All that meant was we went to Cedar Point instead. That was it. There were commercials and pictures, but not a reality that someone’s life was less because they couldn’t afford to go Disneyland. Now, there is stigma, whether it is internal or external, because kids see what they are not a part of differently (even if what we are seeing isn’t the truth).

What can you have vs what you need. When my daughter was born there was an opportunity to step back, re-access and determine what really mattered (this was a struggle and something that can be talked about later). Ultimately, it was decided , without even knowing it at the time, to go with simple. Simple food. Simple pleasures. What became to be understood was what really mattered was time.

If you are doing the parenting thing well, and you ask your child if they want an iPad or your time, they should answer your time. Time is the most scarce resource on the planet. It’s also the one with no pre-determined end point. Could be today. Could be 45 years from now. Would my daughter appreciate being left 20 million dollars when I die, heck even 1 million? Or, if the parenting focus was structured differently during this time, more appreciate she wasn’t left a million dollars because instead she was given time?

Time is simple but finite. Provide them the simple things in life. They’ll make their own way.

986 – Foster curiosity.

Though questions and exploration. Through books and conversation. Teaching out children to ask questions and explore will be essential to their growth as a person. To do this properly, we need to shut-up. We need to listen. We need to allow space, time and silence to let their brains work, process and enjoy.

You will be teaching your children the answers don’t come quickly. To take a moment to think through a problem for the solution. We are teaching them opinions and thoughts matter. Prompt. Don’t answer. Pause. Don’t fill the silence. Take time. Don’t rush.

There are no rules, timelines, structure or answer(s) for curiosity. Each moment is a caterpillar in metamorphosis. A butterfly waiting to emerge from its chrysalis. You can foster the process, or wreck it.

Curiosity is problem solving. It’s asking questions. It’s an exploration of the world. Don’t interrupt. Don’t mock. Shoot down. Or otherwise negate their process, whatever it is, to show us, to tell us, to explain to us, how they are viewing whatever it is they are choosing to focus their attention on. Just foster it. Encourage it. And wonder at what comes from it. In the process, learn from it. Allow yourself to become the butterfly.

987 – Look for, pay attention to, create joy with your child.

I don’t like cliches. Especially when it comes to parenting. There is a time and place for them, to be sure. Overall, they are rubbish. And deserve no place. Take them or leave them? Leave them.

Though, I wonder, is not liking them because of them, or because people tend to say them and then ignore them? Don’t say it to say it, then neglect the very thing you just said.

Specifically referring to “they grow up so fast”. Then pay better attention. Stop putting “other” first. Stop fighting and arguing. Stop wasting time in front of screens and on and on. A riff on a quote attributed to John Lennon, “they grow up fast” while you are busy doing other things. Be present. Starting looking for, paying attention to, creating the joy that is having a child.

They don’t grow up fast. It’s more about what you are doing while they are growing. They grow one second, one minute, one hour, one day at a time. That’s 86, 400 seconds, 1, 440 minutes, or 24 hours to notice, create, and be a part of the joy of having a child.