How can we correctly parent our children?

In this day and age and with so much research how can you know what is right and wrong? What can you rely on as truth and be able to parent your children successfully. This is a question I am sure every parents ask themselves. How can they make their children successful? This week was an amazing lesson for me. Looking at my life ahead I have been really wondering how I should parent. It was interesting as we were talking I could relate to how I taught my dog. It took a lot of patience and I learned from experience what was effective and what was not. With my pup I realized that punishing was the worst way because she would still do it. Instead teach her what she could do and learn that way. Positive reassurance was the best way she learned. Sometimes I still get after her though because she knows better but I realize she is still learning as a puppy. It is hard to have that mindset that they are learning and growing. I related this to parenting. I know that a dog and a child are so different because you can't put a child in a cage for 30 minutes if your mad. It was interesting the similarities I could see. Children take a lot of patience and hard work. I think that the redirecting misbehavior was the one that resonated with me the most. Like I talked before I learned eventually that redirecting my dog was so more effective than yelling at her. I saw that it was so much quicker for her to catch on what to do. For example I have been training off leash for a while now. Before I would let her go and when I would call for her she would not. I would scream at her and yell and when she would come back I would punish her. That enforced that coming back was bad. Eventually we started to change that. I would have treats and even if she didn't listen I would raise my voice higher and sweeter and then she would come. I would instantly reward her teaching her that coming to me was good and that this behavior is what I wanted. This was definitely a learning curve for us but we have made much more progressive and are even able to go to the park with distractions and most of the time she listens. I feel like a lot of this has been about my dog but overall this week taught me so much about how relatable it is. A lot of people told me getting a dog would help me learn about children and I never realized that until this week. Overall I think that how to know or what to do as a parent comes with time. Trial and error is so important. You can do all the studying and try to prepare as much as you can but it will always be different in the moment because each couple is unique and each child is too. I believe as long as we have the gospel in our lives and strive to show love in our home that is the most important. We can succeed and we will. I believe that as long as you strive to always be the best you can.