Being the Good Parent

Start first and foremost with love.

Lead by example. Be the people you want your children to grow up into. Kids learn by mimicking. If you don't like the way the kids are acting, look again in a mirror.

Set good moderate rules and keep them constant. Children can't learn from moving rules.

Kids have different jobs at different ages. That's OK. It is simply them doing their job.

When they are young they ask lots of questions. Answer them all to the best of your ability. Even the fifteenth time they ask.

Teenagers break all the rules. That's also their job. That doesn't mean you have to tolerate it, only expect it.

Kids make mistakes. There is a name for this. It is called "learning". Don't worry. You learned the same way. It is the only way we really can learn.

If they seem to ask "Why?" too much, the problem is yours, not the kid's. Our own hold on reality is sketchy enough that we get uncertain if it is challenged too much.

Kids really don't need television. It is a really bad babysitter. A computer is only slightly better. Both are roughly as addictive as cocaine. Our kids are growing up in a world of fifteen second attention spans. Let your kids be unique with real ability to focus on the problems and joys of their world.

Plays well with others may be the most important grade your kid gets.

Read to them. Tell them stories. Talk about your mistakes. Let them hear your voice.

Eat dinner at the dinner table, and the only thing there is to do, is talk.

Understand that everything that is unresolved with you, will be the clouds of their own marriage.

And in case I forgot to mention it earlier, always remember to love them.