I've learned so much about parenting from being a teacher

I have worked with children professionally for 20 years in all manner of educational settings. Summer camp, daycare, preschool, and finally as a credentialed teacher who has taught every grade from K-4 at one time or another. I have worked with hundreds of parents over the years. I have spent hours each day in a classroom with the children of these parents. I have first hand experience of how children reflect the way they are being parented. Now that I am the mother of 2 wonderful children of my own, I often think about how grateful I am to have had all these years of wisdom about parenting before I even became one myself. I've often thought how every parent could benefit from observing the actions if hundreds of parents and their children before they became parents themselves. Those in my profession are finding more and more that we are having tonparentvthe children in our classrooms. We have a wealth of information from our years of being in the trenches. However, the sad truth about the teaching profession is that parents typically think that we don't know anything. Every parent is the expert on their child, true. But not every parent is an expert on children. Teaching seems to be the only highly skilled profession in which our skills are so disregarded. Do we try to tell surgeons how to operate or pilots how to fly?! Do we assume that lawyers know nothing about the law or that carpenters can't cut wood?! Now that I am a parent, I understand it a bit better. All parents are, deep down, insecure about our parenting skills. We are afraid that we are doing it wrong. Often, we "drink the kook-aid" of a parenting technique and fool ourselves into thinking that it is finally going to give us control of the situation. We even judge those who don't utilize this particular technique. It makes us feel better about ourselves because we are doing it right. Let me tell you the best parenting technique that I've learned from my years as a teacher: Don't ever buy into one prescribed method of parenting. When working with kids, you have to constantly be on your toes. Some days it works,and some days it doesn't. When it doesn't work, you have to be open to the fact that it didn't work, and then you try something else. Every child is different. Teachers learn to develop cery thick skin from all the criticism that us typically directed at us. We have learned that it's okay to make mistakes as long as you keep trying to fix them. We have accepted the very valuable lesson that we are not perfect, so don't fool yourself into thinking that you are better. As parents, you expect teachers to be open to the different needs each child has and expect us to modify ourselves to meet those needs. As parents, you should be open to doing exactly the same.