If We Could Start Over As Parents

There are no do overs in life and there are definitely no do overs as a parent. We only get one shot at getting this parenting thing right. However, this doesn’t mean we can’t take a moment to reflect on how we would parent differently given the opportunity.

In this article, I want to take a few moments to think back on how we would parent a bit differently giving the opportunity again. Although, this will never happen in our life, maybe you can pick up a few tips for your parenting with your child and learn from our mistakes.

If We Could Start Over As Parents

Our children are currently 12 and 8 years old, so our parenting days are not over by any stretch of the imagination. However, it is interesting knowing what we know about them now to consider what we would do differently if given the chance. Here is our list of changes below.

Second Language Early in Life – Thanks to technology, the world is getting smaller and smaller. Our cultures are merging more now than every, which means we are increasingly finding people in our communities that speak various languages. Not to mention, we are travelling more and more. Learning a second language is something becoming more and more necessary in this day and age.

Looking back, we wish we would have started teaching our children a second language at birth. They would have picked up the language very easily had we done this because their brains were wired for it. We didn’t, but our oldest is learning Spanish  now, so it is going to happen for both of them. This just could have been done a lot earlier.

The number of opportunities for bi or even tri-lingual people in the future will be amazing. As mentioned, the world is merging, so having the ability to speak different languages will only open more and more doors for them.

Not be so controlling – This one mainly applies to our oldest son. He was our first child, so clearly we had no idea what we were doing and admittedly we were a little controlling of him. Ok, ok, very controlling is probably a more accurate assessment. It was like we were trying to make him a clone of ourselves instead of allowing him to grow, learn, make mistakes and become himself.

If we could do it over again, we would allow him to make more mistakes without trying to protect him from every turn in life. He would get the benefit of errors and learning how to self correct himself. These are awesome lessons to learn in life. Although our oldest is a well adjusted, intelligent young man today, we feel that he would have been better off if we would have allow him a little more rope to roam the world and explore.

More activities for second son – Our oldest son got the benefit of getting involved in many activities, but our second son hasn’t. Not really sure why we have done this, but it is what it is at this point. The baby boy has been settling for following big brother around and being his #1 fan.

However, if we could do it over again, we would be sure to get him into many more sports and activities. This would give him the opportunity to be the center of our attention and allow him to grow and develop from there.

You are probably thinking it, we will be sure to get him into many more opportunities in the near future. He is still young enough for us to correct this, so we do have a chance go get it right.

In life and parenting, we don’t get very many do overs. Learn from our mistakes and make sure you don’t live to regret any of your decisions. Shower your children with love and opportunities. This is what they need and deserve in this world from their parents.

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