No More Perfect Kids

Chapter 3 begins with a huge reality check, kids are not perfect, just like we are not perfect parents. kids’ issues are perfectly normal. One example I related here with was the potty training. Potty training can be messy and hard. It is always different for each kid. The best we can do, and I think we learn with time, is to anticipate mistakes and foresee misbehavior. If we expect perfect kids we are doomed to encounter disappointment.

A lot of times, and I admit falling to this trap often, we expect our kids to do better than what their brain development allows them to be. Specially with my kids now, they try to be so independent but when I get a tantrum, its like “WTF man?! What happened?!”. The fact that the author reminds us that they are not all grown up yet, is a bit relieving. I did not confirm this but according to this book, the frontal cortex is the last part to develop. Finishing at around the age of 25!!!

Expect to fail. There are certainly no shortcuts to learning. A message I relay to my kids in one way or another but it is hard for me to grasp sometimes. They learn by failing and we need to let them fail. Kids want to be independent but we are basically a restriction for them to be that. Sometimes we are restrictive without even knowing. We need to pay attention to what we say “No” too. Many times to messy activities because we don’t want to clean up. It is not convenient to us. “No’s” are selfish. Let’s try to be more “Yes” parents. I felt that one straight to me.

Being inflexible and protective goes against independence. Our plans do not need to align to our kids’ realities. We need to stop comparing our reality to the reality we had plan for our family. Parenthood stretches us. Defies us to do things we never did. One fun challenge given by the author is to share the most embarrassing story of/with our kids with other parents. What a better way to embrace ourselves and our imperfections? Reject insecurity and embrace confidence.

No perfect kids.

Denny

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