The truly gratifying and overwhelming response from parents around the world to No Regrets Parenting has brought with it an outpouring of personal stories and vignettes. I have had the privilege of hearing many, many happy and grateful applications of the principles and strategies of No Regrets Parenting. Testimonials from parents about how the book has already changed the way they see their kids and the way they share moments with them. I’ve also been asked hundreds of great questions, and received equally astounding numbers of wonderful suggestions for creative and successful No Regrets Parenting. One just yesterday from my new friend and co-conspirator in parenting, Cara Lemieux (www.meandducky.com), who said since reading No Regrets Parenting she now pauses at the door of her apartment before coming in from a long day at work. At the door, she answers her final email and sends her last text before turning off her phone and devoting the next hour and a half or two entirely to her young daughter – no digital distractions from the time she arrives inside her home until her little girl is asleep. What a wonderful extension of the “Unplugged” chapter in the No Regrets Parenting book.
Another theme that has emerged in the questions I’ve received about the book and this blog has been, “My kids are nearly grown. I wish I would have done things differently when they were younger. Is it too late for me?” As with everything in parenting, patterns and habits are formed early in both kids and parents. But those habits and patterns are NOT fixed in stone and CAN be changed even when your kids are tweens, teens, and young adults. No Regrets Parenting includes many, many suggestions for making memorable moments with older kids. From speaking their language (texting, Facebook’ing, tweeting) to forming new family traditions. From taking older kids along on business trips, to helping with Drivers-Ed and college applications.
If you have not been a No Regrets Parent from the time your kids were in the crib, start now. You can be part of your older kids’ lives in ways that will surprise both you and your kids. On the treadmill yesterday, I watched a Netflix movie that I would probably never have watched without exercise as an excuse: Real Steel. This is a film about robot boxing. Yes, robot boxing. But, it’s also a movie about parenting, and about parenting do-overs. Hugh Jackman plays 11 year-old Max’s dad. Dad abandoned the family when Max was born, unable to cope with the reality and responsibility of parenthood. It takes an old broken-down boxing robot to bring dad and son back together again – painfully at first. If you can get through all the robot smashing (think “Transformers”), the family story is really quite touching – a parent discovering his child, a child finding redeeming qualities in his father, and both creating moments together that help bridge the years when there were none.
You can find No Regrets Parenting stories everywhere you look. Some start early in childhood if parents are wise enough to look into the future and see how fast young kids grow up. Other stories start later, with kids already growing up or almost grown; those stories still have the potential for a happy ending if parents are wise enough to call a do-over. It’s never too late to connect with your kids.
Share your stories of connecting with your older kids by adding a comment to this post. If the comments box isn’t here, click on the title of the post and it will magically appear.