The following advice is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event or member of my family.
First, cultivate a close relationship with your child over the course of their lifetime. This may include, but is not limited to: breastfeeding until age three, sending your child to morning preschool (not ten-hour days at childcare), packing homemade lunches (not a bunch of packaged stuff thrown in a sack and certainly not hot lunch), listening to long monologues about video games you will never play, solving problems with bullies by giving assertiveness lessons, and generally making yourself available for every scrape, injury, insult, or break-up.
Second, engage your child in a variety of activities. While it may seem obvious, many parents do not realize well-adjusted children are overloaded, overachieving children. Start year-round sports by age four and continue, at least on an intramural level, through college. Humans need endorphins produced by extreme physical fitness. Stock an orderly art station near your kitchen to stimulate creativity and allow expression of emotion in quiet ways. Require your child to begin each day with meditation and goal setting. Make second-language learning part of every dinner. Travel to awe-inspiring locations on breaks from school and team practices. Please note: If your child gets overwhelmed or anxious keeping this pace, medicate. Once you figure out what drug he needs based on your webmd research, see your doctor for a quick prescription.
Third, set boundaries and limits. Make sure your child never has too much or sees you have too much. Of anything, ever. This includes, but is not limited to, food, alcohol, mind-altering drugs, material possessions, exercise, dieting, volunteering, sleeping, cleaning, religion, and Tylenol. This perfect modeling will show your child too much of a good thing is a bad thing. As adolescence blossoms, make explicit the boundaries and limits you have always practiced. If your child crosses a line, make the boundaries and limits clear again. Then ground your child. Then kick your child out, so as they are floundering, lost and out of control, they will feel more alone and vulnerable. This usually fixes things.
Fourth, keep open lines of communication. Begin in the tween years with half-honest and carefully-contrived stories from your youth, illustrating how easy it is to make bad choices and how bad choices lead to disaster unless you (and your rescuing parents) catch you. This works best if one parent has contrasting stories of an drug-and-alcohol-free youth that was also angst free. Tidy narratives win. Ask your child to tell you about their days at school and nights on the town. Do not ask them to evaluate these experiences, just recount. Do not immediately pass judgement on their immature and ill-advised choices to smoke pot before a shift at Seven Eleven, drink until they pass out, or try mushrooms procured from an unfamiliar dealer. Instead, listen and let the truth roll out in waves. Be thankful for the honesty and do your research. Then bribe your child to have lunch with you at an expensive burger place and tell them how stupid they are as they sip a $ 6.00 milkshake from a very wide straw.
Fifth, remember it takes a village to keep children under surveillance raise children. This is especially true if you live in a community where anyone ever judges anyone else. Call the parents of the children your child played with in elementary school. Feel them out, see if they are entirely-too-permissive or ridiculously-rule-bound. Either way, do not reveal the real truth of your parenting strategy, because you are flying by the seat of your pants. Also, tell them a few impressive things about your child, honorable mention at the Easter Regional Soccer Tournament and the A received on the poem “Green Grass Grows,” written in freshman English. Do not reveal your suspicion that your child tried a friend’s Ritalin last weekend. Finally, ask them to look out for your child, as you will be looking out for their child. End the call by asking for the phone numbers of the parents of the teenagers your child now actually hangs out with.
A Note on Your Personal Failures
If you are unable to follow all of these steps, remember the phrase “is not limited to” in number 1 and 3. Brainstorm the items left off the list, which you must have missed. It is too late to do anything about these, but you may want to keep your expanded list next to your bed so when you lay awake at night worrying, you can pull out the list and turn your anxieties to your past failures instead of your child’s future downfall.
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