Ok … I am a guy with a son but I can relate with a slightly different angle.

Many decades ago (my son is now 30) somebody told me my job as a parent was to teach my kid to behave when I was not present. They pointed out when you are 4 feet taller your physical advantage can be used effectively but when they reach middle school it does not work so well.

So I focused my advice on “why” I wanted him to behave a certain way and not just put an artificial box around him to contain the behavior I did not want. Sometimes the box was necessary but sometimes failure was allowed to happen. And for sure sometimes in the heat of the moment I delivered advice as criticism.

But to be fair, I suppose as a male, my worry over things that might happen during a camping trip or other event was not as pronounced a possibly his mother felt.

After reading this story it raises an issue in my own mind.

I now need to go and ask my son for my own report card and find out how I did. And were the messages received as favorably as I thought I delivered them.