Hey guys, this is Cynthia Yanoff, and I'm so glad you joined us on our newest segment of Pardon the Mess called Asking for a Friend.

Each episode, we take roughly five minutes to answer tough or awkward parenting questions that you or, air quotes, a friend might be dealing with.

So today we have Janet Denison with us, and Janet, here's the question.

Are you ready?

I'm ready.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm missing the point in parenting.

What should I be focusing on as I'm trying to raise my kids?

That's a great question, and it's one that we all had to ask ourselves.

I like to often say that if you can

ask yourself this one question and kind of parent from this perspective, it'll change a whole lot of

what you do. Everything in the world teaches us to parent our child in the moment that they're in.

You parent your toddler, which basically means you run after them

and try to help them not to die. And so, I mean, yes, there's all stages of life and parenting.

And from the beginning, we're so involved with the moments we can lose sight that there's actually

a bigger picture. You want to parent your child's life,

not just their current age. And so you want to step back regularly and say, okay, this is how I might

react in this moment, but what does that say to the bigger picture? The real question you want to ask yourself

is what kind of life do you want your children to have when they're 30 years old and 35

years old and 40 years old? What kind of person do you want your child to be as an adult? I think

sometimes we parent in such a way as to raise successful children, but we've all known some adults that were still successful children.

And you want to make sure you don't parent to teach your kid how to stay a kid.

And so amazingly, that question will give you a different perspective.

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