Lessons on Parenting - Part 1 of a 2-Part Series

In the spirit of Mother’s and Father’s Days, we have created a two-part series about our parenting lessons. 

Quite a few of our friends are experiencing parenthood for the first time and they often ask us for parenting advice. While perfect parenting is impossible, we have seen how some of our parenting practices have worked well while we could have done some things much better. As with most things in life, experience teaches us incredible lessons so here are some of the parenting lessons we often share with our friends… 

Part 1 - the things we learned along the way that we could do better. We also think of these as learning from our “mistakes”.

The Value of Money/Boss/Job - our boys sure have enjoyed playing sports year-round their entire lives. With the unpredictability of tournament game times and schedules, our boys were unable to have consistent jobs growing up. What we mean by consistent is the ones where you have to prioritize work over play or you lose your job. The ones where the boss gives you feedback for being late or working too slowly. You see, growing up, we had to pay for everything, including the gas, car insurance, parking, and meals outside of the home. If we wanted those trendy “Girbaud” jeans we had to make up the difference between them and the “Levis” our parents could afford and were willing to pay for. Back then that amounted to an extra $40 we had to come up with on our own. Then we earned less than $4 an hour so we had to work hard to get those “Girbauds” and we certainly cherished them knowing how hard we had to work to get them. Despite our boys being thankful humans, we may have missed an opportunity to teach them an early lesson about the value of money by insisting they have and maintain “real” jobs. 

“Let Them” Struggle More - we learned this the hard way, and in a way where we had to look in the mirror. When one of our boys was struggling in math, and we also found out the whole class was challenged similarly, we assumed something was wrong with the teacher. We called for an impromptu parent-teacher conference. After a long in-person discussion with the teacher, we realized our son was not being accountable and wasn’t putting forth a strong effort and having the right attitude. We also realized that we were contributing to the challenge by not holding him “capable”. After years of stepping in to help in various things, including trying to solve his math problems for him, we realized the best way to help is to let him fail. Well, it turns out he didn’t end up failing because we stopped enabling and accepted the responsibility to do better. The teacher challenged him to come in early for extra help, practice better study habits, and encourage him to focus on progress over perfection. Through persistence and determination, he raised his grade considerably, and we learned this important lesson…the struggle is real and good for them.

Mobile Devices - we caved and got our kids mobile devices at a young age. While they have been good overall, we believe they have been overused and have unintended consequences. The challenge became real when we were driving on a bluebird day to go skiing with friends who were in town from Minnesota. Our friend and I were in the front seats marveling at the scenic Stevens Pass Byway while the kiddos were in the back gaming away. We said to the kids, “Hey please put down the phones for a minute and just take in these gorgeous mountain views” One of the kids replied that’s not a big deal, I was just skiing Mount Everest on my phone! We just looked at each other and shook our heads! Putting limitations on devices is something we could have done differently and better. 

Next month we’ll be sharing Part 2: Some of our parenting practices that seemed to work well with our boys. 

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the awesome Moms and Guardians out there! 

Cheers and blessings to you!

Matt & Christina