In other words, children's choices are their responsibility, and result from how they decide to meet their own needs. Once you understand this, you can learn to stop interpreting their choices as statements about you. When your kids act weird in front of the in-laws, it is about their choices, not about your value as a person. Grace-full in-laws will already know that. You need to know that too. Otherwise, you will parent to fix your kids, so that when they are fixed, you are fixed. You will parent to control, not to serve. How things look and what people think will become more important than what is real.
Jeff VanVonderen, Families Where Grace Is in Place
control, image, parenting