Do you have a pet? A dog, cat, rat or goldfish? Do you have a job you are required to learn certain skills in order to keep? Probably you have siblings you often have to babysit. One thing common to them all- and I include pets is responsibility. You have to be knowledgeable to take up certain responsibilitites. And these knowledge guide you in the path of success in your endeavor. ---

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Parenting kids can be a very tricky stage of one's life. Since many of us young adults rated our parent as having average skills in the profession of child nurturing- awarded majorly as a result of their faults in bringing us up, we tend to develop a mindset of growing our own children in a better light to be independent, mature and perfect. Unfortunately, this is an illusion as nothing here on earth is perfectly perfect. And that's what makes it life- the imperfections! Many of us have this idea of parenting in our head, we are dead sure it will work out well but that's just what they are- substances of our imagination. In our heads, we can design very impractical theories, they would seem possible because they are well scripted with our heads and it is not affected by experience. Hence you need to acquire the skill by really watching real life scenarios. And you don't have to birth kids before you immerse yourself in the education. I don't have kids yet, in fact I am yet to get married yet I am caught reading a book which teaches parenting rules. The truth is that I don't have need to become a parent before I start learning to be a parent; Some of the mistakes people make in the life can be likened to when a person travels into a city before learning anything about the city. It's the same with getting into a relationship before learning anything about relationships. Many of the kids in the society are nurtured into puberty without prior knowledge or lessons from their parents. They lack any information about the stage of life they are about to encounter. Lessons taught on sex education in schools remains the same as it were many years ago- vague and un-educative. Hence, one out of three students eventually get molested before the age of eighteen and this is one of the problems we face from not getting them properly informed. Many of them end up with teenage pregnancies, STIs and even get into emotional trauma. If you want to get into a business, you ought to learn about it before you get into it. These kids need to be well educated, and you also need to be well informed.

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The rules of parenting is a 2008 book written by Richard Templar. It is one of the books that has really exposed me to the practical working dynamics of parenting. Richard Templar has written several other self development books such as the rules of life, the rules of wealth, how to get things done, how to spend less without being miserable among other books. Richard's book on parenting testifies that there are wrong ways to bring up a child but luckily there are ways to bring up a child successfully, and one would be certain they won’t end up being losers in the game of life. The book is divided in the Attitude Rules, the Discipline Rules, the Sibling Rules, the School Rules, the Teenage Rules, the Crisis Rules, all the way up to the Grown-up Rules. Reading through all these rules, one not only learn to bring up children, you get the idea and as well make proper amendment to your life- and this is the major reason I read the book. ## Restructuring life by re-parenting yourself

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When a child grows up in critism, he tends to condemn; if a child live with hostility, he tends to fight; if a child live with jelousy, he tends to envy; if he lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy. However, if a child lives with praise, he learns to appreciate; if a child lives with acceptance, he learns to love; if a child live with approval, they learn to love themselves. This is an extract from the poem "Children learn what they live by" written by Dorothy Law Nolte, Ph.D. In the society, we find out that the masses is comprised of broken people. They strugle to be successful- this can be traced to the way they were brought up. Many of these people on recognising the need for help begin therapies, attending unending seminars on success, marital life, emotional intelligence among other option that pose to promise a transformation in work, love life and finances. The basic thing to make these secondary step efficient is to go back to childhood and deal with what needs to be dealt with. This is surgery not cosmetology. Majority of the adult population all over the world grew up from houses where parents were poorly informed about their jobs. They committed a lot of atrocities in building up the young children; they not only have favorites among their children (rule 58) alienating the others, they also compare their children qualities arousing the feelings of jealousy, envy and hatred. Many adults live through live as unhealthy competitors because of the mindset they acquired from a tender age. Many lack proper manners to maintain a job or even a relationship. But it's never too late to change these stuffs. How? Because in life, we are designed to keep learning, to keep changing and to keep adapting even at our last breathe. And there is no better parent at the moment to change these stuffs than you. Many of these changes will take time to effect. This is because we've lived with them for the past 25, 29 or even 40 years- you don't expect them to magically cast away (life is a game of transformations and transformation takes time). Remember that not only will learning these rules improve your life, it will help you make life better for your kids and prevent them from going through uneccessary hardship. --- ## For further reading, please visit these sites: - [Psychology Today: Children learn what they live by](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/overcoming-child-abuse/201112/children-learn-what-they-live) - [Parenting ourselve](http://www.thewellspring.com/flex/professional-integration/2458/re-parenting-ourselves.cfm)