Parents, too, can learn from mistakes

Do everything right, every day, and our children will grow up to be healthy, well-adjusted and successful. Simple as that. Except for heredity, fate, divorce, drugs, dangerous neighborhoods, bad friends and low test scores.

By CAROLYN SANDLIN-SNIFFEN

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 24, 2000

In other words, raising and educating children can never be done to perfection. We all need a lot of help, and a lot of forgiveness for our mistakes. Facing up to our blunders is a major step toward learning to make wiser choices. Instead of worrying and feeling guilty, we should view our parental mistakes as opportunities to try something different.

MISTAKE NO. 1: Trying to do everything for our children.

Parents who came of age during the 1960s and '70s have learned to accommodate too much. They rush to school and deliver forgotten books, lunches, reports and projects. When their children become upset with teachers or school work, they absorb that frustration and attempt to make it better by making excuses or shifting the blame. Little do they realize that making a child's situation easier in the present will only make it harder in the future. After all, if the little train that could had a mama caboose who got behind her baby and shoved him up that steep mountain, there would be no lesson in the story.

OPPORTUNITY: Help kids to confront their challenges with determination and to persevere in spite of difficulties.

MISTAKE NO. 2: Failing to discipline.

A lot of parents are overly concerned about being liked by their children. They're afraid that imposing adult authority will destroy a loving relationship between parent and child. Get over that misconception -- for your child's sake and your own. Consider the downside to parental permissiveness. If mom can't make her 5-year-old pick up his toys, it is unlikely she will exercise much control during his adolescent years.

Likewise, a child who comes to school without a previously established respect for adult authority will not be an effective learner. He will not have the self-control to pay attention, follow directions or understand the value of education.

OPPORTUNITY: Establish limits and boundaries, then follow through with praise or consequences.

MISTAKE NO. 3: Trying to build self-esteem by saturating children with materialism. Many of today's children live in their bedrooms, emerging occasionally to eat or go to the bathroom. Their rooms are over-stocked with toys, games, computers, stereos and TVs, and yet they complain of being bored more than they complain of anything else.

Ask veteran teachers, "How would you compare the students you taught early in your career with those you teach today?"

Invariably, they will say that today's students are less imaginative and creative.

OPPORTUNITY: Differentiate between what kids truly need and what they simply want, and give them plenty of experiences for imaginative play.

MISTAKE NO. 4: Not teaching values and morals. Has our society slipped so far that it has become impossible to return to a way of life that has all but disappeared except on Nick at Nite re-runs? Remember when pot was a cooking utensil; grass was mowed, not smoked; coke came in glass bottles from the grocery store, not Colombia; 12-year-olds didn't write sexually explicit notes to each other; families shared the same last name; the word support was used to describe stockings and underwear, not rehab groups; a dependent was someone you claimed on your income tax return, not someone who was hooked on a chemical substance; weapons confiscated in school were made from rubber bands and paper clips; and teachers could call parents and get results, not excuses?

OPPORTUNITY: Bond children to the family and its values because a society can be no more stable than the strength of its individual family units.

No one can expect to do everything right, and fortunately we are permitted to make a few errors without destroying a child. But it is only when we can forgive ourselves and learn from our mistakes that we can share our generosity of spirit with our children.

Carolyn Sandlin-Sniffen teaches language arts and reading at Seminole Middle School in Pinellas County.

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