There is No Cure

Let's be honest with ourselves: there is no cure for bad parenting moments.

The one absolute guarantee of being a parent is that we will stuff up. Sometimes in a really big way. There is no cure. Homeschooling will not cure parents or children of miscommunication, impatience, frustration, or any of the other myriad of relationship enemies every parent and child must face at times.

Nor will sending kids to school shield them from the bad influence of our anger, laziness, selfishness... or in fact any of our character weaknesses.

Let me repeat myself: there is no cure for bad parenting moments. We will damage our children - whether we keep them at home within the loving embrace of family life... or whether we send them out as intrepid voyagers into the big, wide world.

So often we fool ourselves with the idea that there is a formula that will give our children the perfect lives... That if we send them to the right schools (or don't send them to school), control every aspect of their lives (or give them the freedom to discover the world for themselves), etc, etc, that somehow they will turn out "right".

The problem with all the formulae ever devised is that we are imperfect and our children have free will.

Of course there are good ways and bad ways of parenting. Beating children into cowering submission is unlikely to yield a happy result. On the other hand, letting them "express themselves" through tantrums and whining is equally unlikely to bring about success.

If our value as human being is tied up in how our kids "turn out" we are headed for disaster and confusion. A child may become an outstanding citizen despite being brought up by the most horrible and vindictive people on the planet. Or a child may become a cruel psychopath, despite being brought up in a loving but demanding home. To believe that we can control the outcome of our children's lives is to deny our humanity and theirs.

Being effective as parents is about being effective as people. If we live with integrity and honesty, we give our kids the best (although not the only) chance of doing the same. If we live by double-standards in a me-first world, we make it difficult (although not impossible) for our children to walk a path of integrity.

Being a parent is simply about being a person. And there is no cure for that.