Dreaming about parenting advice?

I finally spent some time this weekend catching up on my online Mondo Beyondo lessons.  Which is good since I think I only have one or two weeks left.  It's also been an interesting exercise for me in really taking in and *savoring* the information, not just reading through, automatically writing down the exercises and checking off that box. 

It's just not that kind of class.  What I get out of it directly correlates to how much I put in.  So I can't crank through 5 lessons in an hour.  I may need to re-read and re-do some of them again to really make them work for me.  There's no quantitative measurement on whether I did "well" in the class.  The only evaluation is my happiness and excitement about what the future holds.

Which is very weird for me.  I'm used to things like the Microsoft Operations Framework class I took a few weeks ago.  After listening closely to about 10 hours of lecture, reading through the book, and taking two practice exams, I took the certification exam.  Last week I found out I passed, so I'm now MOF v4-certified.

But I'm getting more comfortable with the "dreamer" inside of me.  (Cue Rainbow Connection - which, incidentally is one of T's favorite songs after she heard the Sarah McLachlan version.) 

One of the exercises I recently completed was to listen to an audio interview with Mike Robbins, a personal coach/motivational speaker/author.  I had never heard of him, and when I heard "motivational speaker", I thought of Tony Robbins and rolled my eyes.  But, one of the things I'm getting out of the class is learning to put aside my skepticism just long enough to give something new a chance.

So I listened.  And loved it, actually.  I took about a page of notes, but the one thing that really stuck with me was when he shared the parenting advice he got from a friend.  This is paraphrased from what I remember from his interview.

We have two jobs as parents.  The first seems like more work, but is actually easier.  The second is more important.

1.  Teach her how to "be in the world" - manners, getting along with others, how to tie her shoes, get dressed,etc.

2.  Teach her how to love herself.

And how do we accomplish #2?  Teach by example.  We love ourselves.

So simple, but so freakin' powerful, right?  But such a great thing to hear, amidst all the manufactured stress about what preschool to send her to, why she won't sleep, why I have to ask the same question 6 times before getting an answer, etc.

Did I already mention I love this class??