Too often we focus on the JOB of parenting and lose sight of the JOY of parenting. What if our job was to be conduits of joy?
Too often we focus on results, behaviors, outcomes. This feels like our job as parents—to churn out effective, well-adjusted, socially capable adults from the chaos of childhood impulses, fantasies, and foolishness.
But what if our job is actually to produce an environment of joy which will often result into children who become adult capable of flexible, creative, and collaborative interactions with others and the world?
Along with celebrating the actions and achievements of our children, even in the ruptures of relations (when discipline and correction is required), parents can model the kinds of relational repair that brings children back to joy.
Parents who raise children with the healthiest self-esteem reported express their joy to the child about almost everything the child does…
However, too many parents in modern Wester culture come primarily focused on the job of parenting over the joy of parenting, and become preoccupied with what the child does rather than who the child is.
from Attachment disturbances in Adults.