While I am only a mother of two... welp, actually three with my little Bubbles in the belly... I think that I have made a common mistake in parenting. I have chosen to be a "distraction parent" more times than I would like to admit.
While I love teaching my children lessons by experience, sometimes while "distraction parenting" I choose to take them away from a situation rather than have them learn from it.
This happens when Rocky is throwing an awful temper tantrum in the store and I look for the nearest exit or try to find the little carton of goldfish in the check out lane. I truly am only trying to be a thoughtful patron, however, I know that being a thoughtful patron is not nearly as important as teaching my child that the grocery is not the time nor the place to throw a fit.
I look to my mother and father for wisdom in parenting because of this. She was not afraid to handle our behavior on the spot. Yes, she was probably VERY embarrassed of our actions and wanted to run us out of the store, but she stuck the course and was able to teach us proper behavior in public.
I also look to the example of my father. He always took us to restaurants, even from the time we were infants. This now is thought of as an inconvenience instead of a much needed learning experience. There may have been one or AT THE MOST two times that we acted out. I am sure that there were times when my father was embarrassed, very few because he was strict. The point was that we knew that Dad would make us leave, we wouldn't get an awesome dessert, and we would have 5 other kids mad at us for losing this privilege for them. My sister and brothers were very helpful in making me who I am today because of their guilt trips if one got the others in trouble. Needless to say, we ALWAYS behaved in public because of these helpful experiences.
I look at my siblings today and see that my parents did something right because we all turned out pretty great, hard working, loving, and spiritual adults (I will deny this when I am mad at a sibling for doing something dumb). I guess what I am getting at is that the only lessons that make great adults are the hard ones. We shouldn't be scared to parent in fear of being "too mean".
I will end with a quote that my dad used when talking about doing the right thing even if it wasn't the most popular, "Big men become big by doing things they don't want to do when they don't want to do it because they know it's right".
