During our first installment of “Whatever Life Throws at You”, we had great conversations around what it means to be a parent and the challenges that occur while dating.

We began our meeting with an amazing conversation surrounding the questions of:

• What does it mean to be a parent?
• What do you want the norm to be for your child?
• How do you want your child to grow up?
• What relationship do you want with your children?

Some key take-aways from this conversation are:

• Parents really want to have a close, heart-to-heart relationship with their children
• Every parent wants to see their children shine
• At the end of the day, regardless if things are really hard for us or not, we, parents are responsible to insure our children grow up in stable environment without stress, trauma, domestic abuse, negative environment, deprivation. Things like that influence children’s lives negatively through adulthood. We as parents need to get help, come up with decisions which allow the child to grow up as secure, respectful and independent adult.

When our conversation turned to parenting and relationships, we dove deeper into the following questions:

• Do the people in my life exhibit the norms I want for my child?
• Does my spouse or significant other support me in my goals for my child?
• Does my spouse or significant other influence and support my child in a positive way?

Some key take-aways from this conversation are:

• Parents should take the role of the disciplinarian, not significant others
• Significant others should always know if they want to date someone who has a child/children, “Our child is part of the package. If they don’t see it that way, then we are done”
• Our responsibilities as parents are to identify insecurities or issues our child is going through
• If it is not right for the child, it won’t work for the relationship

Parents take their job of shaping their children seriously and have to raise them to become good and honest adults. Parents should never sell themselves short. It is important to set the bar high for a significant other and not settle for someone who does not meet what you deserve.

You know in your heart what is right for you!