The Four Corners of Our House

With the release of the first edition of “No Regrets Parenting” nearly 10 years ago, interviewers, readers of the book, and attendees at my seminars asked how the “No Regrets Parenting” concept developed. I answer by describing our house. It’s a simple two-story with four bedrooms upstairs, one at each corner of the rectangle-shape footprint. My wife and I are in one corner bedroom, and the other three corners are the kids’ rooms, one room per kid. But except for a few holiday weeks each year, the three kids’ corner rooms are now empty—our kids have formed their own families, living their adult lives, visiting when their busy schedules allow. We walk by the kids’ rooms dozens of times each day.

The walls in the hallway between the bedrooms are filled with pictures of our kids at every stage of their growth and development, crib to canopy. Just like your homes, I’m sure. Yet, as nostalgic as we are for the days when our “corners” were full and we could kiss our kids after story time and before bedtime every night, we are blessed by having no regrets about the amount or quality of time we spent with our kids when they were little. We were there, with them, and we made the most of the time we spent with them. We can’t get the days with our young children back, but even if we could, we probably wouldn’t do it any differently—which feels wonderful. That’s the feeling of having no regrets.

And now, with the Updated and Expanded Edition of “No Regrets Parenting,” there’s also lots of advice I hope you’ll find helpful in parenting your young adult children – you know, they’re the ones who used to be in the corners of your house.