Every parent I’ve ever met, or worked with as a pediatrician, has wanted what’s best for their children and has wanted them to be happy and successful.

Yet those same parents often find themselves projecting their own likes, desires, dreams, and biases onto their children. It makes sense: if there is something we enjoy or think is important, it’s only natural that we try to share it with our children.

But there’s a big difference between “sharing” and “imposing” and it’s important to be able to distinguish when we truly have our child’s own best interest at heart and when we have our own. Wanting to communicate our beliefs and hopes is one thing, wanting to force our children to conform to them is another thing entirely and reveals an unwillingness to respect the child’s individuality.

In my pediatric practice, I had a fashion-loving teenage patient named Jenny whose equally fashionable mom was upset because Jenny had announced she wanted to take auto mechanics as her junior year elective course. Her mother, who was very invested in Jenny studying fashion design, insisted she take art instead, suspecting her daughter really just wanted to spend time with the boys from the basketball team who were taking it too.

Fortunately, Jenny was able to get her parents to listen to her true reason for wanting to take the messy and un-fashionable – class: she was about to get her first car and didn’t want to feel taken advantage of by auto mechanics who assumed girls didn’t know anything about cars!

Sound familiar? Have you ever nixed a request from your child because it didn’t square with your expectations or assumptions, before discovering what they were really trying to accomplish or learn?

Each of us has to develop our own Parenting Personality, and, obviously, we can’t permit our kids to do things that are dangerous or inappropriate before they have the maturity – and the impulse control – to make critical decisions. But I’ve found that it’s a very good idea to allow kids to make their own choices and mistakes, without it tying to our own preferences, or our sense of self-worth as a parent.

It’s also important to remember not to equate our child’s success or failure with our skills as a parent. If our children accomplish something, it doesn’t automatically mean we are an excellent father or mother. If our child doesn’t graduate cum laude or become a CEO, it doesn’t mean we should see ourselves as failures.

Learning to separate our own ego from parenting requires humility, understanding and openness and is a wonderful opportunity to experience parallel growth and development along with our children.

Remember, true success is when you help someone succeed at being themselves!