It’s been a lot of years I’ve been living with the fact that I react towards my kids the way my parents reacted towards me when I “misbehaved” – by yelling. What’s worse is, I feel powerless; I can’t stop it. My father at least had the excuse he was an immigrant from a tiny little town, with no support, trying to make a life in a new country. I had it easy: ate all I wanted, no hand-me-down clothes, and I didn’t have to walk to school uphill both ways.

But when I get frustrated, I yell at my kids.

Recently I had a panic attack. See, my girls are about to turn eight and ten, and I felt like I was at risk of running out of time to be a good father. Before having kids, I assumed I’d be a great dad… a dad like Mr. Cleaver on the TV show Leave it to Beaver; he knew what to say to his kids, kept his emotions in check, and always had a nice haircut.

I’m a big believer in education; I’ve taken a lot of different courses to help my different careers. But I realized I was totally untrained for the biggest job of my life, being a dad.

So I went to the bookstore and bought four books on parenting. Instantly I felt better, like I might just figure out this parenting stuff, and my kids wouldn’t grow up to sue me.

So far I’ve read one book, “Parent Effectiveness Training”. I thought it had three really good messages:

Number one, you have to be real with your kids; don’t try to be a superhero. If you admit you’re unsure about something, or you’re worried about something, it helps foster genuine relationships with your children. They also purported that the mom/ dad strategy of presenting a “united front” was bogus. It’s okay to disagree with your spouse in front of the kids. Of course, my wife didn’t like this too much, so now I find myself having to get her to agree with me, that it’s okay to disagree with me.

The third thing I learned from this book is that effective communication with your kids is all about feelings – understanding what they’re feeling, and expressing how you feel. For instance, let’s say your kid says to you, “I hate school” (What are the odds, right?) If you’re like most parents, you’d tell them they were going, and that was that. What the book says instead is, understand your child’s feelings, before passing judgment or giving orders.

For example: “You really don’t like school, huh?” Kids are so eager to talk about their feelings it doesn’t take much leading to get them to open up about what’s really bugging them. What’s more, as they start talking, they often come up with their own resolutions. And the best part of all is, even if there is no fantastic resolution that arises, your son or daughter will feel better simply because you took the time to understand how they’re feeling.

Well, I could hardly wait to apply my newfound techniques. I got home from work, went straight to my girls, hugged them, kissed them, and smacked their butts, like I usually do. Then I just waited. We had dinner, but no issues. They did their homework without complaining. Then upstairs to wash up, and still no fuss. I was getting antsy, like a kid with a new toy.

Ultimately, the first opportunity arrived the next night, when my oldest told me, “Daddy, I don’t want to go to dance class.” Admittedly, the sizable cheque we cut to the dance studio flashed in my mind’s eye, and I was barely able to stop myself from grimacing.

Instead of my initial thought of laying down the law, I asked: “You’re not feeling up to it tonight, honey?”

“No,” she answered flatly.

“Hmm,” I replied, very thoughtfully. Then I shut up, only offering a nod or two, waiting. And sure enough my daughter blurted out how hard the dances were, that it was tiring, and on and on. Two thoughts flew to my mind – my kid’s lazy (she gets that from her mother’s side of the family, for the record), and, wow, this understanding- their-feelings stuff might actually work!

Yet again, I felt a little bit better about myself. And if I can learn a thing or two from each of my three other parenting books, that would be fantastic.

Maybe I’ll never be the dad I imagined I’d be, the dad that my kids, and all other kids, deserve, but I’m not going to beat myself up about it. All I can do is be me. That, and try to remember some pretty basic stuff – understand how my kids are feeling, express how I’m feeling, and save my yelling for the golf course.