These parents often enjoy experiences and support that others may not have. In general, I've noticed that these parents have some or all of the following experiences and characteristics:
- They are loving.
- They have had significant positive personal support throughout their lives.
- They allow their children to lead them and understand that every child has unique traits, talents, interests, passions, and challenges.
- They communicate, ask for help, and speak up respectfully when necessary.
- They are dedicated to their children and family, and make time to work with, enjoy, and support their children well.
- They have time and typically are able to meet the basic needs of their family without too much stress.
Sometimes parents have fairly "easy" to raise children, and sometimes parents have very challenging children. I find that this is often the fate of birth or how the genes match up. Very dedicated, kind, and loving parents sometimes have children who don't fit society's norms or expectations--these children present great challenge, and call parents to travel paths they don't know how to navigate, paths that are very challenging and demand the best of them.
In general though, children profit from parents who make the time to lovingly and happily support those children. For parents who are challenged to meet basic needs, this is a mighty task in our society since many of those parents face great challenge with regard to making enough money, providing good shelter, and having time for their children. Similarly parents who have had tough childhoods and little mentoring with regard to good parenting can face significant challenge when it comes to raising their own children as they haven't profited from good modeling, significant love and attention, and understanding of what it takes to parent well. If you're a parent who has had a tough childhood, it's important to deal with that by getting the support to understand what you didn't have and what you need to parent well.
Most parents fall somewhere on the continuum of good parenting and bad parenting. Most of us have room for improvement, and most of us have areas of strength. What's important is that we continually work towards doing the good job possible to love and care for our children well. Onward.
