Even as I wrote the title, I felt the irony. There isn’t one aspect of parenting that is difficult, but many. As we all know, it has been described as the most difficult and lowest paid job ever. Kids arrive as infants without instructions, and from there it only gets more challenging. At the end of each year, wise parents assess how the year went, looking for pockets of growth and improvement, taking stock of what the “next thing” is for their child or children. This complex task is often made more, not less, complex, because there is an element of “tag team” to it. Parents need to be on a similar, if not the same, page on the large and small issues and decisions. Not easy to do when the stars align, let alone when the tide is running contrary.

While I get to spend an enormous amount of time with students between the ages of 10 and 15 and have chosen this age group as a specialty, you will rarely hear me claim to be an expert. Instead, you will hear about tendencies, and strategies, and tactics, and best efforts. This is because every child and every situation is different. That said, there may be two or three perspectives that might be helpful to remember as we look forward to helping young people grow during 2020.

Most of what we see on a day-to-day basis is “rounding error.” This is difficult to see or feel at the moment that your child has failed the test, acted out on the soccer field, or made some other variety of unfortunate misstep. Still, it is true that there are very FEW moments in life that determine a child’s trajectory; instead, it is the day-to-day support and caring correction that wins the day in the long run. I mean it. Most of what happens in Middle School will be forgotten by the end of high school, let alone by middle age. That doesn’t mean it is not important that we parent wisely and well, only that it puts small transgressions (and even some larger ones) into perspective and creates room for you (and your significant other) to step back, slow down the moment, talk together, and parent with compassion and consistency. The missteps matter little; what we learn from them, though, is priceless.

If your child from time to time doesn’t get really bent out of shape about a decision you have made, you are probably not doing your job right as parent. There have been some terrifically BAD parenting trends in the last few decades: trying to be friends with your kids, trying to “give” your kids self-esteem, micromanaging every decision, hovering fiercely, and the list goes on. All of these forget two critical elements of growing up: 1), only the child can do it, and this means making lots of missteps; and 2), the job of the parent is to set boundaries and give support from an appropriate distance only when needed. When we are on our parenting game, we are probably setting a few limits that are resented by 13-year-olds. This is as it should be. The best parents are not authoritarian, but they do know when to draw a boundary and stick to it, whether it involves technology, curfew, behavior with friends, or ALL of the above. Parents of high schoolers rarely, if ever, wish that they had been more permissive during the Middle School years. This is because it is easier to parent as the stakes rise—think drugs, alcohol, sexual activity—because your child knows that when you set a limit, you mean it. It is terrifically difficult to begin setting boundaries when the child is holding car keys and looking you pretty straight in the eye.

You have more time to make the right decision and to be on the same page as parents than you think. Every once in a while we need to call a play at the line of scrimmage or make a momentous decision on the fly. This is the exception to the rule, even when it feels like there is pressure to act swiftly. More often than not, you have oodles of time. Time to say something like, “this is an important decision and one that I want to make thoughtfully with the input of your dad/mom.” This does three things simultaneously: it models good decision making by showing your child that you are going to make a thoughtful, not snap/emotional decision; it indicates that it will be a team decision, and therefore, is more difficult for the child to renegotiate; and it provides time for the child to consider the situation (error of their ways?) independently, which is something you want him/her to do anyway. This does not guarantee that you will make the right decision, only that you will be making it together, after consideration—usually two good things, but not always.

No magic bullets here. Parenting is just plain HARD. It doesn’t matter how wonderful your child is or how well things seem to be going. There is always parenting work to be done. When possible, stop to genuinely appreciate how wonderful your child is now and how lucky we are to have kids and get to raise them. This usually helps me, even at my most frustrated, find space for compassion. Finally, let’s wish for a bit of good fortune for ourselves and for our children. There is a lot of sweat, tears, and laughter involved in raising healthy young people. There is also more than a dash of good luck.