Competitive Parenting

My son was only 12 months and saying three word sentences...Well MY son could climb into a chair by himself by 11 months...Well, MY son bonked the kid that was harrassing him at daycare and the teacher was mad but I told him he did a good job once we got into the car.

Competitive parenting, we have all been there. For some reason, we feel the need to validate our parenting quality by comparing our children to the neighbor's. This may be entertaining to the adults but what sort of message is it sending to the boys?

Boasting, exaggerating and creating white lies to make us look better, smarter, faster, more interesting seems to be not only the norm but expected when we have adult conversation about our children. I have given up the idea that we have conversations that the boys don't hear. When I hear myself add that extra verbal mile, I try to remedy the comment with a little reality and take a moment to clarify the exaggeration.

Honesty is incredibly difficult! It may be easy to not tell boldfaced lies to people but it is the little things that get you! If you child repeats a white lie and you call him on it, you are saying that it is OK for an adult to stretch the truth and when he grows up it will be OK. I don't want this kind of message for my sons. I struggle with this issue every day and feel that it is important to the moral growth of my children. I do make mistakes but I also try to correct them.

The next time someone counters your comment on your child's actions with a bigger and better comment on their own child, just nod your head and say hmmmmmmmmmm.

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