The Biggest Parenting Responsibility You Have

 

The biggest parenting responsibility you have isn’t what you might expect.

It isn’t to make sure your kids turn out a certain way.

It isn’t even to stop their misbehavior.

No, the biggest parenting responsibility you have is YOU. We see this quite clearly in the following adaptation of the Serenity Prayer, which we think is a fantastic (and challenging) reminder for us as parents:

We parents often bring our own baggage to the parenting (and disciplining!) of our children. (We’ve written about plenty of our own parenting struggles with this.) This can complicate things and teach kids that parents are against them instead of teaching them to make a wiser decision next time.

The biggest gift we can give our kids is to do the work to leave our baggage at the door and be the safe, loving space where they can truly learn and grow from their mistakes. This doesn’t mean that we ever get it perfect — but it does mean that we take responsibility for us.

We can’t control our kids. But we can control ourselves.

You can download a free desktop or phone wallpaper image of the “parenting serenity prayer” here.

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