How does one know when they have been a better parent? What is the standard against which being a better parent is measured? Knowing and understanding the child’s point of view is what makes the best parent, and who is to say what makes one parent better than another.
Doing better as a parent goes beyond not beating, selling, or mistreating children in some way. What is the starting point? Most parents do not do these things but also need to do better, do better in teaching kindness and tolerance, do better by teaching love and generosity.
Defense attorney Diego Ruiz Duran wants to remind people that when teaching a child to love reading, the child needs to see this behavior. The same holds true in all areas that a parent wants the child to learn. Children will mimic the action demonstrated by the adults that the child loves. If a child receives kindness, they will be kind; if a child encounters laziness, they will be lazy; if a child receives hate, they will hate.
As parents look to be better than the parents they had, the tendency is to overcompensate. Parents that grow up in a strict household will become liberal or permissive. One generation rarely believes their parents were the best, and statements like, “When I have kids…” are used to state how things will be different.
Each generation must take on the goal of parenthood with the available information and reach to do better. Take the lessons taught and add in the knowledge that makes life better and give this to the child, knowing that today’s best may not be the best for tomorrow.
Like many things in life, parenting is doing what seems right at the moment and making adjustments to bring about the desired results. For example, when a child is taking a step towards delinquency as they find who they are as individuals, the parent must be willing to adjust tactics to gain the desired results.
When looking at schooling and moving towards a future much like Diego Ruiz Duran, working hard and being driven needs to be internal; no parent-given drive will get a child where they want to be, and further, this has to come from an internal drive.
The best parent is less of a goal that can be measured by success and more to do with how happy the children are in the end. Because how one person measures success is not the same as how the next person measures success; in other words, happy for one is being a lawyer, and happy for another is owning a business.
Even though success is a hard target to hit and even define. Looking at how to do better as a parent starts with knowing and understanding the kids trusted into our care. As parents accepting the plan a child has for his/her life because it is their life to live, and guiding towards success without forcing a plan that the child may not want. To learn more about Diego Ruiz Duran’s law career, visit his biography.
