Parenting: Making Mistakes

Posted on February 24, 2009 
Filed Under Fathering, Life, Parenting, Personal, Spiritual Life

What do you expect from your child? Perfection? Probably not…but maybe you are leading in such a way that your son or daughter thinks it is all about their behavior being picture perfect.

Here’s a good reminder to parents about what is important. Writer Alan Mason intended this advice for workplace managers and leaders, it strikes me that this is very appropriate for the parenting process.

Every parent wants their child to do well in life. Sometimes, though, we forget that kids make mistakes, and lots of them, as we train and coach them toward maturity. We can be discouraged by the failures along the way. “Why can’t this child finally get it? How much longer do I have to teach, and train, and tell them to do better?” After Mason sets the context by noting that we often want better for those we lead and manage, he observes:

Look for progress, not perfection.

Mason’s point: As long as the employee is moving toward the stated goal, they are succeeding. It’s our job to look for movement, even small movement, toward the goal, and applaud it. Without positive reinforcement there will be no progress.

As a father, I need to remember this principle. “Things take time,” as one person observed to me, and that certainly applies to the parenting process. So as I make my way home tonight, I’ll hope to see each of our kids making progress, and I will cheer them on toward maturity.

And I hope my Heavenly Father will do the same with me.

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