Parenting Advice-Who do you Listen To?

The best piece of advice on raising children came from my Doctor right before my first daughter was born. She said, "Before you accept advice from anyone, make sure they not only have children, but that you like their children."

What? I was shocked! How could I not like a child? Why would I judge my friend's kids like that? It seemed extremely harsh that my doctor would even suggest such a mean thing.

My daughter is thirteen now, and I can't tell you how true that little nugget of advice has been to me. Everyone is always ready to tell you how you should do things. Advice is handed out more often than samples at Costco on Saturday. How do you know who's to take and set into use, or who's to take with a grain of salt?

First off, parenting advice should come from parents. Some one who has experienced the same things will not only understand where you're coming from, but may have tried something that worked really well. If you've never been up for eight days with a screaming colicky baby, you would have never tried different things until you found out what worked the best.

Another factor in taking advice from a parent is their children. If you don't like the way they behave, or the parenting used to raise them, it stands to say that you probably don't want the advice from that particular parent. When your eight-year-old daughter has taken up the habit of back talking, you don't want advice from a parent that's constantly getting into screaming fights with their children. Advice on manners should probably not be taken from a parent whose child never says please and thank you.

As I see it, I have an advice filter, and it's very fine tuned. I hear everyone's advice. I file away advice on parenting from parents, and toss it out if I don't like how their children are turning out. It may sound harsh, but if you sit back and just watch, you'll notice right away which children you want your child to be more like than others. Tune your filter, and you'll see what I mean.