Parenting--It's All in the Effort

  Let me not mince words, some children have awful behavioral moments.  We have all seen that child at the grocery store/museum/theater/etc. and wondered how did that come to be?  Why is this child lashing out and how is the parent handling it?  More importantly, would I do the same thing in this situation?

  Then I debate if some children really are tougher to raise, despite all the best efforts?  Or are some great children spoiled by lazy, ineffective, inconsistent parenting?  Sadly, I don't buy into the "bad seed" belief and I tend to blame the parents.  I am not perfect and I certainly have my moments of weakness, but I like to continually think about and assess my parenting...my actions, my words, my thought processes, my areas of inadequacy.  Since this is the job I have chosen to undertake, I feel it is my duty to apply myself to it as though I was employed.  In some allusive way, I am employed by civilization to raise an ethical and productive member of society.

  In our house, we employ the Family TREE: Trust-Respect-Education-Empathy.  These are the tenets that we each need to strive towards, for ourselves and for others.  Being only 2, Alexis has yet to truly test rules, but already we direct misbehavior to the TREE.  What did you do wrong?  What could you have done instead?  What branch does this fall under?  I am sure Alexis doesn't grasp most of what we are saying, but she hears the words and sees the consistency.  Likewise, good moments and choices are praised and also applied to the TREE.  The other day, Alexis took a toy from her friend.  She looked at me and before I could react in any way, she gave the toy back, "here you go!".  I told her that was the right thing to do and that she showed a lot of respect for her friend by giving the toy back.
    
  We believe in right and wrong, in being parents first, and in the basic Judeo-Christian ethic of  behavior.  Sometimes things are not fair, sometimes we lose, and sometimes we witness poor choices.  However, each action is unto itself and every bad decision can be turned right.  Each new moment has the possibility to be handled in a positive way.  The goal is to turn on more lights than we turn out.  By no means am I a perfect parent and I have a long way to go, but I often wish all parents cared about their job as parents as much as their employment.  Its not always knowing what to do, its trying to do something.  Who knows if this TREE concept is a good one?  But I feel strongly in that I am making the best effort I know how.  And when I witness a child making poor choices, I hope the parents attempt to grasp the learning moment at hand and teach their child a way to turn the situation right.