I felt ugly. The child s age doesn t even matter. I used to laugh at parents who lectured to tiny children, necks ready to snap from the backward arc as they stared up at their parent trying to morally guiding them. Don t get me wrong. Morals are good.
Guidance is great.
But one look into the eyes of the child would quickly tell you that no one was home. The child was thinking about the candy they saw on the last isle of the supermarket or why their parent had such long nose hair. Hey, that s what I used to do. In family therapy, we call it doing more of the same. We learn how to parent, right or wrong, from our own parents.