No parent is perfect.

And thank goodness, because raising children “perfectly”–in a perfectly sheltered environment–would only be an injustice to their growth and ability to discover themselves in this imperfect world.

We want our children to bear adversities and challenges and to feel discouragement, fear, and uncertainty. It pushes them to learn to live with failure and disappointment and becomes a valuable incentive for them to try and explore again, to strive. Reproaching them and showing our disappointment towards their mistakes or contrarily being overly comforting, too easy on them, or nonchalant, weakens their resilience.

Fundamentally, these magnificently spongy, bouncy, resilient minds have got to fight their own battles. The single most important job for us parents (apart from providing for them) is to ENCOURAGE. We can help catapult their courage and self-confidence by expressing genuine interest and most importantly inexhaustible faith in them (always, no matter their age). “Next time you’ll do it better!” OR “I knew that you could do it, you did it, you did it. I knew that you could do it and indeed you did!” (My Fair Lady💗)

This way we become their constant. We become their pillar of complete reliability. And when we ourselves experience our own strife, the best we can do is maintain an even keel in our behavior towards them. Whether our living conditions, a lack of time, or sickness play into our lives, the most we can do is to do our best (flaws and all), and who knows, perhaps these knots of struggle might later unravel and serve as impetus to them for great achievements.

We cannot prevent children from seeing and hearing what is “not good for them.” And likewise we cannot scold them for their misdoings. Kids (like any adult) hate being told what to do—how they should be, what is good and what is bad. Nobody wants to be preached at. But we can demonstrate our views of and exemplify what we see as good or bad. We can have talks with them to discuss and analyze the issues. If another child or our own says or does something ugly at school, it’s not enough to just say that it is bad (our kids already know it). But talking about it and asking them about their views, allows them to reason things out on their own.

Let’s encourage and step back so to speak, in full faith, and allow them to learn and fend for themselves. Let’s let them feel independent NOW and that we believe in them. Let’s relate equal to equal with them and in our own mustered courage, surrender them to life TODAY.