Putting the 10 Talents of Parenting in Perspective

By Lawrence Cohen, Ph.D.

This is the conclusion to Dr. Cohen's 10-part series on nurturing The 10 Talents of Parenting.

For some people, parenthood comes easily. They seem to always be able to play, respond to their children's needs, understand children's feelings, and remain calm under stress. But most of us aren't naturals; we need to develop those traits that will make us the parents we want to be. After all, you can't do anything complicated without a lot of practice, and raising children is about as complicated as it gets.

Over the last year, I have written about how to nurture The 10 Talents of Parenting. Of course, there are always different ways to divide up the pie. I could have written about the talent of stretching yourself. For example, roughhousing with your kids if you always avoid that type of play, or getting on the floor to dress up dolls if you can't stand to do that. Or the talent of handling uncertainty. We all love to know what's going to happen next, but parenthood comes with no guarantees - except the absolute certainty that you won't be prepared for whatever happens next.

Moms & Dads on Parenting

The parents who logged on to the 10 Talents forum at Parenthood.com wrote about a variety of ways that they nurture their parenting abilities. Many wrote about playfulness, saying that they tried to remember to make it a part of every day.

One dad said that he would go with his son to "places where we could be 'silly' without being self-conscious." Apparently getting filthy with sand and dirt was part of the fun, but this kind of wild play was also "a great cure for the grumpies."

But this dad also recognized that play can be deeply meaningful too: "When we would go puddle- or dust-jumping, or screaming, or singing we sometimes talked or sometimes we didn't say a word. But there was never an empty silence between us - there were times when we didn't need to fill the space with words."

One mom, who discovered that her child loved it when she pretended to trip and fall over during games of chase, suggested another deeply meaningful reason to practice being playful: "I try to play with him as much as I can since I'm a working mom and don't get to see him much in the evenings. I hope that our play grows as he does, and he has lots of great memories of that time."