What Mom and Dad did not Know

You hear it all the time. "Well, my mom and dad (hit, spanked, kicked my butt, fill in the blank) me and I turned out ok." The reality is that most parents will draw almost exclusively from their own parental experiences to form the basis for how they will raise their own children. While most of us were fortuneate to have loving, caring parents to emulate, many new parents today grew up in less than ideal situations and may continue a cycle of potentially abusive behavior towards their own children. The problem is that parenting for most people is a very personal issue and many systematically reject any advice on how to raise their own children. We will eat oat bran when the latest medical study tells us it will help us live longer, but if a research study indicates that certain parental behaviors may inhibit the emotional and social development of our children, many will immedietly discount the results as contradictory to their own beliefs and not applicable their situation.

Parenting is something that you apparently become an expert at simply by doing it. If your kids grow up without major stints in rehab or prison, you were successful! We can and must do better than this, but today's parents must avail themselves to the resources available that our parents did not have. The physical, emotional, social, and spritual well-being of our children is too important to ignore the volumes of accumulated and updated parenting knowledge. Would you want the surgeon removing a tumor from a loved one to use the technique her father used 20 years earlier? Or would you want her to have studied the most recent research available? Why is the emotional well being of our children any different or less important? My parents did not have an instruction manual when I was born, but the information to assemble one today is there. When it comes to raising your own children, you should talk to other parents, read all you can, and listen to the experts to formulate you own educated, nurturing approach to parenting. Your kids deserve nothing less.