Perfection?

Do you know how hard it is to get a "perfect" family picture?  Impossible!

Repeat after me..."There are no perfect families!"   Doesn't that feel better?   Really though, no family is perfect, just as there are no perfect parents and no perfect children.  We might aim to be perfect in certain areas and might come pretty close but, because we are imperfect people, the most we can do is our best.

It's so easy to compare ourselves and our children with our friends, neighbors and even families on the television.  (Now, THERE'S an unrealistic comparison!).  What we are doing is comparing their best with our worst.  We see well-behaved children at a restaurant or some other public place and wonder why our children are so out-of-control, not knowing that family at all.  We see families who seem to have it all and feel a twinge of jealousy as we compare our circumstances with theirs.

This does us no good at all!  If we're going to compare ourselves with anyone, let it be with ourselves!  We can only change ourselves.  Let's make goals and work on being BETTER parents, better than we have been in the past.  Target problem areas and work on those.  Then we can legitimately compare our "old" self with our new, improved self!  Improvement is the key word.

Comparing ourselves with others only causes discouragement and envy. But...recognizing the need to improve and grow in our own lives and working with our children to learn appropriate skills and behavior is a positive response to the dissatisfaction we feel in our families.  We won't be perfect but we'll be making steps in the right direction!