Parenting Pride

My two eldest daughters are taking responsibility for the raising and training of our puppy. Most of the time they love it. He’s sweet and cuddly and fun to be with. But he is also a puppy. Which means that he chews everything and seems to interact with the world with his teeth, or by jumping on people.

Po was the top of his puppy class which was a great source of pride for my daughters. He’s a Goldendoodle, so he’s pretty smart. He catches on quickly and wants to please. Sometimes. They graduated to Beginner Obedience and Po is now in the “teenage” years.
One night after dog training they came home looking very dejected. “Po was awful,” they said. “It was so embarrassing.”

My mind instantly jumped to images of our dog snarling and attacking other dogs. Did he bite someone? Are we going to get sued?

Oh, no. “He wasn’t paying attention in class.”

I start to laugh, take one look at their sad faces, try to get serious, and then just lose it. Yes, I realize that having your dog jumping everywhere in class and not listening or following directions is very annoying, but it is also so comically ironic!

“Welcome to my world!” I chortle.

They don’t get it.

I take the opportunity to sit down with them and teach them an important parenting life lesson: Your self-worth as a parent does not come from your children’s behavior.

Let me say that again. Your self-worth as a parent does not come from your children’s behavior.

I didn’t know this with my first child, or even my second or third. My first three kids were pretty compliant and obedient children. They didn’t bite people, or throw toys, or get kicked out of church nursery. I thought it was all me.

I would look at other parents, the ones whose children were melting down in the grocery checkout line and just shake my head. Oh, that poor mother. If only she was a better parent and more consistent with her discipline.

Ha!

Then along came my fourth. My sweet, snuggly, loving little boy who can drive anyone up the wall in two minutes. I’d done all the same things with him, but I was getting different results. I even went through a period of time during his terrible twos where I wondered if I could ever really love this kid. I’d pick him up from nursery inwardly cringing and waiting to hear what horrible thing he’d done that week.

I was embarrassed. I felt like people were judging me and thinking I was a bad mom. And that’s when it hit me. Children are people too. They are individuals. They are unique. And they are responsible for their own actions.

My responsibility as a parent is to train them, correct them, and point them to Jesus. My responsibility is NOT to make them perfect. Letting go of that was such a relief. Sure my kid might be screaming in the checkout aisle, but that’s no reason for me to be embarrassed! I’m going to correct him, tell him to stop, give him consequences for his actions, remove him as quickly from the situation as possible, but I’m not going to feel like a failure as a parent. I’m doing my job. He’s the one who is choosing how to respond.

And that’s what I tried to tell my girls. Their job is to remain calm and assertive and correct their puppy. But Po is a puppy and he’s going to act like a puppy. He’s going to be distracted, and disobey, and try to see exactly where that boundary is. That doesn’t mean that they are bad puppy parents, it just means that they have a puppy. And they need to stay calm and not allow their self-worth to be tied up with how their “child” is behaving.

I can’t make my kids be anything. I can only be faithful to do what God has called me to do. My self-worth comes from Him alone, not from any behavior—good or bad—that my children exhibit.

(ps. You know our family likes making music videos. Here is one that my girls made about Po. We really love him!)

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