Parenting is My Teacher
by Shelly Jenson

I believe I have made a commitment to my children to provide them with a safe place to crawl, walk, stumble, fall, and always find footing. Included in this commitment is a set of boundaries. Boundaries firm enough to teach consequences and flexible enough to allow discovery. If I let them investigate life, without judging them, they will discover their own truths.

I believe in teaching my children the delicate notion that bad choices do not make bad people. One day my son noticed a man smoking and exclaimed,  "Oh my gosh, Mom, that man is soooooo bad.  He is going to die!" I explained that the man had chosen differently, but that didn't make him a bad person. He was silent as he pondered this difficult concept. A few days later my son thoughtfully made an obtuse attempt to empathize with a stranger, it wasn't great, but it was a beginning.

I believe humor is a powerful teacher. I happened upon it one day when my daughter was doing a math assignment. When she had completed it, she flew downstairs to play. As I began to correct it, her answers looked too familiar. I glanced around and discovered the crumpled paper from yesterday's attempt. I realized her endeavor to cheat and was aghast!  How could she? Why would she? My initial reaction was to lecture her. However, after thinking for a few minutes, I cheerily called her upstairs, handed her the two papers and said, "If you're going to cheat, you need to be more clever about it!" I watched her face register fear.  Then slowly a shy smile played around the edges of her mouth. She looked up at me with her eyes twinkling, put her arms around me and said,  "Sorry, Mom, I just wanted to play. Do you want me to do it again, for real?" Humor had been the perfect teacher.

I believe I must continually forgive myself when I am not the parent I expected to be. I can't recall how many times I have  given up  parenting. Yes, given up! Yet, each time I do, my parent-child relationship suddenly becomes less complicated and I realize that I was wounding myself, and my children, with the blade of my expectations.

I believe that, if I allow my children the freedom to shatter my expectations, they will choose their own singular paths and become self-determining adults. I am learning to separate my  self  from each child's self. I feel their pain and I feel their joy. But, their lives are their own. 

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