NOT MY KID!

We are a nation of individuals who are very defined by our choices. We're fiercely protective of our rights and our freedoms. We argue these in the legislature and in the press. We demand freedom of choice...but we have a hard time allowing the same to our children.

Parents are tremendously important in children's lives. As a parent, you have a lot of influence, but you need to realize you can't determine their lives. This is one instance where you can definitely have a bad impact on another person--that's easy to see--but you don't get to rob the kid of choosing bad things.

It's sad and ironic, but there are limits to what parenting--even good parenting--yields and this is because the kids get to choose. Even when they're making bad choices, they get to pick their own fates. Having choice means your children can pick the lives they want and they do this regardless of what you may have had in mind for them. College or not; money-making career or not; bad relationships or good.

You don't get to decide.

You just get to be the kind of parent--the kind of person--you'll feel good about. That's the limit in this role. Don't think this is easy, either. It's not. Parenting is hard and sometimes thankless, but then, you're doing it for you--you chose to have your children because of what the role meant to you. (If you think you raised kids because someone else wanted this of you, look at your need for that person's approval.)

Never lose sight of the reality that choices yield consequences...for you and for your kids...and don't think you're doing your children favors if you intercept their consequences when they grow into adolescence and adulthood. You grabbed your toddler when he would have run into the street because it was appropriate and necessary then for him to be shielded from the consequences of life-altering choices. As kids grow older, it's important to realize that experiencing consequences is the only way we humans learn. Some of us can see others' experiences and internalize the lesson, but most of the time we have to see first-hand that our actions bring us certain things.

You love your kids and you want good things for them. You want to believe good things about them, but it benefits them (and you) if you work to be objective and if you let their choices be about them, not about you.

A child's choices doesn't mean his parents are good or bad. Whether he chooses to get a higher education and makes a lot of money or whether he chooses to be a drug dealer--this is a choice he gets to make, not you.

You get to decide what kind of person you want to be--whether you protect your kids when they're young and deserve your protection, whether you beat them or not or whether you ignore them and neglect the relationship. These are your choices. This is what you get to see as a reflection of your parenting--not what they do.

Kids get to decide what kind of lives they lead, just as you choose yours.