Thomas Edison said, “I have never failed.  I have, however, found 10,000 things that do not work.”

What does success look like to you?

            A promotion at work?  A degree behind your name?  New stuff in your house?

Parenting is a difficult place to measure success.  When the kids are little, they may throw temper tantrums, but that doesn’t mean the parent is a failure.  It just creates a new opportunity to model self-control.

I always felt like the kids were an extension of me.  But that thinking was a pitfall.  Could I take credit for the great things?  Only if I took the blame for the bad behavior too.  Am I a success if my kids are well-behaved?  Am I a failure if my kids flunk out of school?  The trap of that kind of thinking, is that my self-esteem is based on someone else’s behavior.  That would never hold up in a court of law!  Maybe Thomas Edison would say a better definition of success in parenting, is someone who keeps trying to find what works with a child’s particular personality, and never gives up!