One of the best examples of parenting I’ve read involves a man who is now in his early forties. He said, “I felt bad for a lot of my friends when I was growing up. Their parents were pretty tough on them when it came to grades in school. Their parents were crushed when they came home with B’s instead of A’s. They got grounded whenever their grades weren’t at the top. What was funny was that the more the parents grounded the kids, the more they rebelled. Some of them even got further behind in school.

“I’ll never forget one day when I was in my last year of elementary school. I came home from school with a report card that had three C’s on it. I had no idea what I would face. My father looked at the card, however, and said, ‘Three C’s. Now let me see. Where on this card does it tell me what a C means? Oh, here it is. C means “average.” To me, average means “just fine.” Average means “okay.” I don’t see anything wrong with having an average, okay son.’

“Dad would also say, ‘Did you try your best on this subject?’ Because I knew how he felt toward me, I always answered him honestly. If I said yes, he would say, ‘If you did your best, you can be proud of yourself.’