With Father’s Day coming up), what are three parenting lessons that Jay Paterno — Member of the Penn State Board of Trustees and son of Hall of Fame football coach Joe Paterno — picked up from his father, and has used while raising his own five children?
“My father was an extraordinary coach, but an even greater dad,” says Jay. “Fittingly, in Italian, ‘Paterno’ means ‘fatherly,’ and he embodied that role in every part of his life.”
3 Parenting Lessons Passed Down by My Father, Joe Paterno
1) When you become a parent, you’re only as happy as your least happy child. And true happiness in children — and as a parent — doesn’t come from indulging their every want and whim. Rather, it comes from instilling values and ethics in your children that foster the self-esteem and self-respect needed to navigate life’s inevitable ups and downs.
For my dad, the way to build that confidence was to set realistic expectations and then allow us to meet those goals and expectations. Too often, we as parents want to pave the way and make things easier for them. The better way is to have young people learn to take the steps to success on their own.
2) There are two types of people in the world: problem people and solution people. Problem people can point out all the things that are wrong, identifying problems and assigning blame. People that can do that are easy to find. Solution people identify problems and find solutions to correct them. Those are the most valuable people — especially if they are the ones to trigger solution actions. If the trash needs to be taken out, be the one who does it without having to be asked. That attitude never goes unnoticed.
Teaching us to be solution people was as simple as my dad asking if anyone could shine his shoes before a trip. Whoever stepped up to do the job would make a few bucks (in the mid-1970s I think we got 50 cents per pair).
3) Be a “We” and “Us” person. Extend a hand, reach for others. This lesson was rooted in the Lord’s Prayer, where we pray for our daily bread, for forgiveness. It is not a prayer for power, wealth, or domination. Every pronoun in that prayer is plural: “we,” “us,” “our.” The same goes for the Declaration of Independence and the preamble to the Constitution — every pronoun is plural. It’s when we extend a hand and reach out to others that we begin to see ourselves not as isolated individuals, but as part of a family, a community, a nation, a team.
My parents set the example for us by having a home that was open to all. The example extended to volunteering time for other causes to speaking out and standing up for others who needed a voice.
