Be A Better Person

She asked how he was doing, and he answered he was going to therapy. She followed with a question as to why he was going to therapy. His answer, and I may be paraphrasing this a bit – “I want to be a better person.”

An “Aha” Moment

This was an “aha” moment because it crystallized my thinking about what I have been doing since my late teens – helping people be better. When a client or parent I am working with asks me what my goal is, I can say – to help you become a better person and parent. When you think about it, doesn’t everyone want to be a better person? I’d argue that if you took a survey of prisoners in our penal system and asked if they would like to be a better person, I think they would agree. I worked with a young father who ended up having an affair and was extremely remorseful for his action, and when I said my goal was to help him be a better person, a better husband, and a better father, the tears started streaming down his face. I think we are wired to be better. To become the best version of ourselves. To be a better person in all of our relationships.

What Does it Mean to be a Better Parent?

When I worked as an executive coach at 3M, I told my coaching clients that they could become a better person but not necessarily a better leader, but they could not become a better leader unless they became a better person. I propose that this statement is true for us as parents. We can become better parents only if we are willing to become better people. But what exactly does it mean to become a better person or parent?  Although I think the answer to this question is unique to each of us, it comes to us if we take the time to reflect on how we relate to our kids now and how we would like to relate to our kids. The gap represents the opportunity to be a better parent. If we think backward from how we wish to be better parents, we will discover that what we want to do will make us a better person. I think we would all agree that we could become better persons and parents if we were more kind, loving, accepting, forgiving, open, vulnerable, honest, responsible, etc.  Add your overall qualities to this list. These are lofty goals but can be translated into specific actions.

Practices that Make a Difference in Becoming Your Best Self

In my book The Parent’s Launch Code: Loving and Letting Go of Our Adult Children, I outline six practices that can make us better people and better parents. These have been described in earlier blogs but let me describe them briefly again. Incidentally, you may recognize that these are not just launched practices but can apply at any stage of the family life cycle to help us be the better parent we want to be.

• Show unconditional love in our words and actions. Tell our kids that no matter what they do, our love for them will never change. In their darkest times, the message implanted in their heads and hearts may be the only thing that helps them survive.
• Build a stronger relationship with our kids while letting go and encouraging their identity development and independence. As such, we need to be better listeners than tellers, better at asking questions than giving answers, and more willing to ask for feedback on how we can be a better father or mother in their eyes.
• Demonstrate vulnerability and openness to our shortcomings as imperfect parents, and apologize for our actions, whether they represent neglect, abuse, or other actions that suggest we could have done better. This allows us to shed our guilt and mend the rife that may exist between us and our kids. Sure, our kids aren’t perfect, but we need to be the bigger person and say we are sorry.
• Embrace forgiveness toward ourselves for our failures, not being the parent we should have been, maybe experiencing a divorce, or not being available for our kids in some way. We may also be called to be better parents by forgiving our kids who have disappointed us or acted irresponsibly.
• Balance nurture with firmness (love and backbone) is the biggest challenge for parents. It’s a process critical to our kid’s development of resilience and ultimately moving on with their lives. We have to be willing to act in love while implementing our values and principles. Love and saying “no” is tough love in action.
• Letting go is the sixth practice, which begins when the baby arrives and becomes a separate human being. Our lives with our kids represent opportunities to hold them emotionally, literally, and simultaneously let go.

My book is not just about launching our late teens and young adults, it’s about how we can love and let go throughout our time with them. I hope you will buy the paperback or digital book to learn more about the specific actions you can take to be a better person and, ultimately, a better parent. All proceeds to me will go to charity. My goal is to get this information out to the many parents struggling with teens and young adults. Incidentally, if you get an email from me, you will notice that my valediction at the end is to be a better person. My kids thought I might be suggesting they are not good people. That’s not my intent, and hopefully, my story above of the origin of this phrase will make it clear that we all can be better.

Be a better person.