Learned: Trust My Instincts

Jeffy's at the age where he's getting into everything, as many people on facebook have read about. I asked for advice and got plenty. And none of it really seemed to fit. I tried lots of different things and this is what I learned.

I learned that what will work for other people's children may not necessarily work for mine. And what works for one of my kids probably isn't going to work for another. This is one of the things you hear about and know about but doesn't really become concrete until you have kids of your own.

I tried advice from people I admire and trust--it didn't work. I tried other advice--it didn't work either. I had plenty more advice to try, but didn't feel especially confident in them, so I didn't. I gave up on what other people were telling me and focused on what I thought would work with this particular little man. And I started making progress and started to see some improvement. Yay!

I still will ask for advice when I don't know what to do, but I'm not going to arbitrarily do it. If I think it might work for my kid, I will. But if it doesn't sound like a good idea, I won't. I have enough trust in myself as a parent to trust that what my instincts say to do are probably a good idea.

Lesson learned: Trust my own instincts over the advice of others.