Introduction Introduction It's often said that the most important thing you can do for your children is to love them. Well, yes, of course it is. I'm taking it as obvious that you love your kids, and you don't need any book to help you do that. But, whatever anyone says, love is not enough. So, what else really matters? We do a million and one things for our children, from teaching them to walk, through checking to ensure they have clean socks, to making sure they know how to stay safe, and we listen to them tell us for the fifth time how they scored the winning goal in their playground game of basketball or football. No parent has time to do everything (and nor would it be good for our kids if we did). That's even truer if you have more than one child, or a demanding job, or are on your own. So how do you decide what you absolutely must do and what you can let go? Unless you want to live in a permanent state of guilt, angst, or trepidation, spending some time thinking about what things will make the biggest difference to your child and what you can afford to let ride really makes sense.

Let's think about what you're aiming for. You want your kids to enjoy their childhoods, and you want them to grow into healthy, confident, successful adults who will be happy and will make those around them happy, too. Recognizing that goal starts to focus your mind-but how do you narrow it down further to the "must do" priorities? How do you know what's really, really important? I've spent many years watching lots of children grow up, with great fascination. Not to mention my own-I have three children, and three stepchildren whose lives I became involved with in their early teens. This deep fascination with what parents do and the effect these actions have on their children has also led me to ask many adults about their own childhoods. When I pulled all this information together, the picture that emerged clearly indicated that parental input makes the most difference. I've narrowed down the real essentials to 10 broad principles. These are the things that you need to get right in order to set your children up for the best possible life.

You can get them right in your own way, of course-we're all different. Occasionally, I should warn you, you'll get them wrong. We all do that. You'll realize you got it wrong and you'll make amends, so that will be okay, too. After all, your children don't need perfect parents (how excruciating would that be?). Your children need parents who put them first. I'm guessing that you put your children above yourself in your priority list. That's good; that's one similarity I've noticed among all the best parents I know.

There's a lot of very important stuff in this book that will make a big difference to your children-but don't panic. I bet you're doing a lot of it already, and the fact that you're reading this book shows you take your job as a parent seriously, which is a big plus. Assuming you're human, however, there are bound to be some important things that you haven't thought through. We tend to have certain principles we feel are important (often having to do with what influenced our own childhoods) and others that we don't really think about. This book can help you spot the gaps so that you can give attention to the most important things you could be doing for your children. Doing some of these things may be hard work; some of them will come naturally. Irritatingly, some of the pieces you find difficult will come naturally to your partner, but that works both ways. On the plus side, however, working on the difficult pieces will help you realize just how much of what you do for your children isn't so important.

Best of all, after you have these 10 bases covered, you can stop stressing about the rest, and get on with being a great parent and enjoying your child. Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.