Parenting Advice Should Remind You Of What You Believe About Parenting,
And Assure You Of What You Don’t

Parenting Advice used to be something you got unsolicited, just because you had children and complete strangers used to feel the need to ‘advice’ you on how to raise them.

For all I know the same thing happens even today, though it would be nice to pretend that we have become more civilized with the passing of time and the liberating events of the very recent past; Parental Time Warps excluded.

Regardless, Pareting Today actually involves a proactive search for the Parenting Advice that once was provided to us at random times and by random people, and without us actively seeking it out.

A recent Google search for the topic “Parenting Advice” yielded no less than 30.6 million results dealing with this topic (and all in only 0.19 seconds) – Very Impressive Indeed!

So what was once advice dispensed in drops and couplets, has turned into an ‘on-demand’ torrent of parental “what to do” and “when to do its”, that in quantity could not be dealt with in its entirety due to the sheer volume of what is now available to us.

So what does all of this instant Parenting Advice mean to us as concerned parents today?

Of course it is a given that we all want to possess Good Parenting Skills, but how do we sift through all the “noise” and the mountains of information to arrive at that which is truly useful in our quest for quality parenting advice?

And let’s not be blind to the irony that this web page itself is serving as another piece of that ‘Parental Advice Information Superhighway Overload’ we all travel down and use to find the answers to the questions that we seek.

In my opinion, THIS information on this particular Website IS useful in your quest for usable Parenting Advice, since we spend very little time telling you ‘What’ to do, and instead direct most of our efforts helping you to ‘Think About and Consider' WHY you do as a parent those things that you do as a parent.

One universally excellent piece of Parenting Advise is to Set Family Rules that you and your family can live by. This is essential to the establishment of a peaceful and happy home.

What we do here is to Educate and Empower you to find the right answers to your Parenting Advice questions by helping you to understand that you already have most of the answers you need, and then by giving you (or helping you to get) the confidence to trust yourself in acting those parental answers out in your everyday parenting life.

We here at this Parenting Action Guide are honest and we like to ‘keep it real’, and that has to count for something these days . . .

So . . . with that preamble to this web page firmly in place, it is our pleasure to present to you a short list of four suggestions on what a concerned and loving parent might do with all of the Parenting Advice that you are accessing these days.

Note to reader: And that includes what you should do with OUR parenting information and advice as well!

Suggestion No. 1

Read The Advice But Don’t Do Anything That Doesn’t Feel Right To You

It is good and proper that we avail ourselves of every opportunity to advance our knowledge on each and every front that interests us in life.

Parenting is a serious business that is going to affect and benefit you and the ones you love for generations to come. So read all that you can about the subject, as long as you are learning valuable lessons and as long as the subject remains vital and interesting to you.

But don’t forget that NOBODY knows your parenting realities like you do.

You must be at peace with your parental actions at the end of the day, so only do those things that feel right to you.

Some of the advice you read you will agree with and will want to do with your own family, and some of the advice won’t make sense to you – and that is as it should be.

Learn all that you can, then make the best parenting decisions you can, based on what you know AND based on what feels right TO YOU.

To-do list book - © Koalazymonkey

Suggestion No. 2

Beware Of Those Who Tell You: “This Is The ONLY Way To Do This Thing!”

‘There are many roads that lead to ROME’, or so the saying goes.

This Parenting Action Guide has consistently stated that there are no “one size fits all” parenting solutions in life.

Families are as unique as life itself, so how could there be?

What would ever cause someone to claim that they had the ‘one and only one right answer’ to your parenting dilemmas?

I know people want to make money selling stuff on the internet, but if you ever read about someone claiming that only THEY have the answer, then click away as fast as you can!

That is why we strive to get parents thinking, since parents by-and-large must find the solutions to their own parenting questions, and independent thinking helps to solve these problems sooner than later.

Even in cases where parents and families get professional counseling and advice, the professional will always work with the family and give them suggestions for what they might try to improve their home life and solve their family situations. The final result, however, is always left up to the family to work out on their own, as best they can.

Think about it: Who else but you can live your life for you? Who else but your child can live your child’s life for them?

All help is ultimately self-help.

Just make sure the advice you listen to is not sold to you as “The one and only way to parent you child” type of advice.

Such an approach is flawed BEFORE it starts.

Suggestion No. 3

If You Are Unsure About What To Do, Err On The Side Of Following Your Heart, And Not By Following A Stranger’s Advice

There is no such thing as a Perfect Parent, which means that all parents will make some parenting mistakes along the way.

We have learned that it is much easier to live with those mistakes if we were sincerely following our hearts at the time a mistake was made, rather than blinding following the Parenting Advice of others that just didn’t feel right at the time we did it.

The only way to learn how to swim is to get into the water and try to learn to swim. The same holds true for learning how to be an awesome parent.

Since proper parenting requires parents to think and act for themselves, there is no better way to do this than by using your heart as your personal, parental compass, and following it where it leads you.

If you do this and still make a parental mistake, as is bound to happen in life, then it is easier to understand what went wrong and how to correctly approach a similar situation in the future, than by acting blinding on someone else’s advice.

If you follow someone else’s advice, against your better judgment and against that tiny voice inside of you trying to tell you that ”this is not a good idea”, then you will never be sure if the mistake was a result of you not understanding the advice properly, or from you not following the advice properly, or from just what in the heck went wrong here?

This is not to say that no Parenting Advice you read is worth following, but it is to say that you must agree with it and feel good about it before you incorporate it into your parenting reality.

And that leads us beautifully into our final suggestion of the day:

Suggestion No. 4

Learn To Trust Yourself As The Parent That You Are

At the end of the day, if you are a parent then that’s what you are!

If you were able to be a part of having a baby, and if you are now in the process of parenting and raising that child, then you are a pretty capable person who has a lot of positive things going for you!

If you don’t already trust yourself in your role as a parent, then learn to do so immediately.

Why do you need to trust yourself as a parent immediately?

The reason is simple: If you can’t trust yourself as a parent, then how can your children trust you as ‘their’ parent?

Let go of any negative images you may be carrying around about yourself from unkind things others may have said to you in the past. Regardless of the source or who may have said it, as a parent you have the obligation to believe in yourself as the parent NOW!

Judge how well you are doing as a parent by how happy, kind and responsible your children really are (and not just how they are when they are around you).

Learn to Have Fun Being A Parent, and learn to enjoy the ups and downs that come with the position.

But most of all, learn to trust yourself as the parent of your children, and then follow your heart and learn to be the best parent your children could ever hope to have.

Now that is some Parenting Advice worth following!

This entertaining video shows how one famous father follows his heart, and his love of traveling in a comfortable trailer with his family, to do with his family what others may never consider doing with theirs, and that’s just GREAT since he trusts himself as the parent, and is comfortable in the decisions that he makes.

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