One at a Time

My friend Darrell went to a career seminar with the intriguing title: 

How to Get Rich Working Half Days 

The opening line of the seminar was, “I’m going to tell you how to get rich working half days. The first thing you have to do is decide which 12 hours you want to work.”
    Right.
    I thought long and hard about this. I read a shelf-full of books. I worked with kids and parents daily for two and a half decades. I interacted with the most and the least effective parents I know; and I interacted with the most and least resilient and flourishing children I know. And Susan and I raised an adult our own-selves.
    And here’s the One True Thing: There are no secrets, keys, or steps. There’s just you and maybe your partner, and one child. Even if you have five kids, you still have to raise them one at a time. Some are ready at three for what other children won’t handle until five. Some learn best by ear, some by eye, and some by hands-on instruction. Try one size fits all parenting (the same goes for teaching, coaching, and mentoring) and the result will come out looking like Class Diagnosis[1] as sure as I’m sittin’ here. So, sorry, I can’t give you three easy steps to raising adults.
    But I do have this 30-Day Guarantee….

 from Raising Adults by Jim Hancock

[1] Class Diagnosis is what happens when we assume everyone in a group shares the same characteristics and problems by virtue of being in the group. It’s not that Class Diagnosis is completely without basis, only that it’s a short cut, an easy answer to a complicated question.

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