In this post, I want to talk to you about parenting. Now a lot of people get into parenting, completely unaware of what the journey's like. It is one of the toughest, most challenging journeys you'll ever take on. The reason why this is because nothing you ever see, read, learn about, get advised about, can prepare you for the actual event. You can have an understanding, but when you're in the midst of it, sometimes it can be very overwhelming.

I know there were certainly times during my own parenting journey that it was quite overwhelming, and I didn't quite know what to do. However, to make it a little bit easier, I want to explain one thing to you, and that is basically what your ultimate goal is. Because with parenting there are obviously various stages that children go through, and with each of these stages they have different needs that they have, different levels of support that they need, different levels of guidance that they need, different levels of involvement within the family and therefore your parenting role changes.

There are, however, some constants that run through the whole parenting journey, and this is what I want to talk to about here. And it's one that dawned on me slowly as my parenting journey progressed and I realised, by the time my boys, were probably starting school in the first year or two, it dawned on me what my role as a parent was and what any parents role is, and it's this one thing, and that's to put yourself out of a job.

That means as quickly as possible, you want to be able to stop being a parent, So if you can do that, you have actually done a really good job as a parent. I'll explain that there are three things that you need to assist your child or children in attaining, and that is you need them to develop a level of independence.

That means they need to be able to do things for themselves. You get a lot of kids nowadays, they hit adulthood, and there's so many things that they seem incapable of doing, they don't seem to be able to cook or clean or pay bills, check the oil in a car, change a tyre, change a light globe, so many things they seem to have no idea how to do. That's one thing I made sure with my boys that they were capable. They could do various things, so they started cooking dinner when they came over to my house. Probably once each weekend that they came over and I would explain to them what to do, but they did it, so by the time they reached adulthood, there was a number of meals that they could cook. They could do your spaghetti bolognese, and roasts, and stir-fries and all this sort of thing So they're more than capable of fending for themselves in that regard.

 And the good thing is if you give them capability, if you make them able to fend for themselves, so basically, at the age of 15, for example, they could run a household. If you can get them to that stage, they then develop the second thing and that's confidence. They need to have confidence in themselves, in their abilities, in their ability to actually achieve something, and finish something. So if they have the confidence, then they're willing to try new things, which is a really important thing. So when they enter the working world, they're willing to give things a go. They're willing to risk failing so that they can learn. They'll understand these things a lot more because they have the confidence.

The other thing as well is, once they've got confidence and they've got capability, they get the most important thing and that's independence. The worst thing you can have is someone who's attained adulthood, and they're still dependent on a parent. If you have raised your child and they're in their mid-twenties, late twenties, early thirties and they're still dependent on you, they're not capable. They're not independent. I'm sorry, you need to be admonished. You need to be told off because you haven't done, your job as a parent.

The challenge with a lot of parents is these helicopter parents? The reason they are like that, is that they don't have any faith in their parenting abilities. In other words, they don't believe they've managed to teach their child how to be capable, how to be independent, how to be confident. So therefore they need to keep stepping in and rescuing them. Because if you have faith in your abilities as a parent, if you know that you've done the best possible job you can, you don't need to step in and rescue your child. You don't need to step in and hover around and make sure they're all right, checking in every five minutes.

So that is the goal as a parent, do yourself out of a job. If you can make it so that your children don't need you, and there's a big difference here, as long as they don't need you, they can choose to want you in their life. And that's a big difference between a person who is dependent on you and needs you and someone who's been raised correctly and has capability, confidence, independence, and chooses to spend time with you. Because they have these things, you've done a good job of raising them.

Anyway, that is parenting in a nutshell. Obviously, there's a lot of things to go with that. However, if you keep that goal in mind, you will do an awesome job as a parent. If at the end when they hit their 18th birthday, they're capable they're confident and they're independent, you have rocked it as a parent. You have done really well.

So, that's my summary of parenting. So I hope you got something out of that. If anything I've said has triggered you, that's a good thing, because that's obviously something you need to address, you need to look at so that you can be a better parent and you can raise your children as best you can.

Now no one does a perfect job. Okay, I don't imply, I'm not saying, I'm not hinting at, that anyone should aim for some form of perfection. When it comes to parenting, we're all gonna have things at the end we wish we could have done better. We do the best that we can at the time. But if you keep that goal in mind to get your children capable, confident, and independent, you've rocked it. So if it's triggered something, go and work on it. Be everything you can be. Be the parent your kids deserve. If it hasn't triggered anything, then you are on your path. Awesome. Keep up the good work. I hope you've enjoyed reading this blog.

Just remember, here's to a good life