Making the Grade - A+ Parents

A+ Parents Take Time
Children need parents who are "there", listening and available in kid-time. You never know when a child will really need you - to share their fears, ask meaning-of-life questions, or to just feel their hand in yours. Parents need to be flexible and on-call just in case - everyday. Traveling parents and 10-hour-work-day parents can create daily check-in routines that communicate "I'm here for you" too.

A+ parents must also make time to take care of themselves. A family doesn't work if the children's needs are met but the adults in the family are left wanting. Yes, it's a constant balancing act - but a necessary one.

A+ Parents Teach
Children need guidance to grow well. Your child is forming lifelong attitudes about learning from you above all the other teachers in his life. A+ parents honor a child's sense of wonder. The world is a fun and exciting place waiting to be discovered by your child.

A+ parents also teach children the value and responsibility of social interactions. Your child is learning how to get along with others. She needs to be taught social courtesies and how her behavior affects others.

A+ parents also teach children about a sense of self through feelings and experiences. Home is where you expose your full emotional life. Children need help understanding that difficult emotions are part of humanity. They need to feel safe and loved through all of life's ups and downs.

A+ Parents Learn
Parents are always learning from their children and with their children. A+ parents know that as soon as you figure out one stage of development, your child moves into a new more complicated stage. Uncertainty and resilience are your friends. Successful parents are those who are growing in the process.

A+ Parents Forgive
Parenting is about the relationship with each of your children far more than it is about getting "it" right. Relationships, like The Velveteen Rabbit, aren't always perfect and new. All successful parents need to embrace imperfection in themselves and in their children. Mistakes will always be a part of day-to-day parenting.

What's your grade?
The only grade you get for days and years of parenting is the smile on your child's face, that small glow in your heart that says this is worth it, and that content feeling in your gut that says you did the best you know. And there's always extra credit given for effort!

Karen Deerwester is the owner of Family Time Coaching & Consulting, writing and lecturing on parenting and early childhood topics since 1984. Karen is also the Mommy & Me director at The Ruth and Edward Taubman Early Childhood Center at B’nai Torah Congregation in Boca Raton.