I confess, one of the reasons I was so excited when my firstborn took her first steps was the shoes. I could hardly wait to clad her feet in the cuteness that is little girl shoes.
Not long after she first toddled across our living room, I pulled out a borrowed pair of pink size 3 shoes. I carefully put them on my daughter's feet and helped her to stand. I waited for her to take her first steps in big girl shoes.
Instead, she began to wail.
I figured she just needed some time to adjust to the feeling of sturdy shoes on her feet. I did my best to distract her as we drove to church.
A little while later I picked up my now shoeless daughter from the nursery. Her teacher explained that her shoes seemed to bother her so they helped her take them off.
It was the beginning of a bit of a battle. I thought she needed to wear shoes. She thought otherwise.
A week or two later, I decided maybe it was time to buy her a new pair of shoes. Perhaps we could find something more comfortable for her.
Imagine my surprise when her foot measured in at a size 5. The mystery was solved. As soon as she was in shoes that were the correct size, she was more than happy to wear them. She walked without a problem.
Why hadn't I thought of something so obvious before then?
Well, truth be told, I had simply done what my friends said had worked for them. Two of my friends had daughters not much older than mine. Both of their daughters wore a size 3 shoe at 12 months. I didn't even question whether or not my daughter might need a different size.
It seems so silly now. (And quite frankly it probably makes me look a little more senseless than silly.)
However, as I recently recalled that shoe episode, I wondered about how many times parents, including me, make parenting decisions based upon what works for another parent and child.
Wait, I take that back. I wondered how many times parents try to force something to work, that will never work with their particular child.
No matter what I did, my daughter's size-5 foot was not going to fit in a size-3 shoe. It simply wasn't going to happen.
Yet, the same thing that hurt my daughter's feet worked just perfectly for my friends' daughters.
I think so much of parenting is the same way.
A parenting strategy that works so beautifully for one family may completely fail to work for another family.
In fact, even children with the same parents, sharing the same daily life and routine require different strategies.
I'm learning that studying my children, much like measuring my daughter's foot, helps me to know which shoe, both literal and figurative, will fit best.
That is a good thing.