The Third Major Principle of quality depends on the first two Major Principles of quality; by using all three, you are well on your way to being an excellent parent. First, you have a Quality Attitude: you try to make things around you better than they have been, and you try to do whatever you are doing better than you did it before. Second, you have recognized that when someone criticizes you, when he or she makes fun of you, either you are succeeding, or they just criticize everything and everyone anyway. Now you are ready for the Third Major Principle of quality.



Quality takes time.

This may seem obvious, but if it really were obvious, there would be a lot more quality in the world. Particularly, let's take a look at how it applies to parents.

Time is a deceptive little trickster, and it varies from person to person. What seems like a long time to one person is short to another. The difference is especially striking between a child and a parent. A child can play a simple game with his parent for hours, and beg for more, while the parent feels ten minutes is quite long enough.

The Third Major Principle of quality, that quality takes time, solves this problem. Time takes on a completely different character when you understand that you are not wasting time, or spending time, or losing time, or enduring time -- you are converting time into quality. You are taking some amount of time and using it to create higher quality in your results. In the case of a parent, you are producing a happy and bright and confident child.

Time is not the only ingredient in producing high quality results, of course, but it is essential. Everyone can remember a time when rushing through an action caused mistakes or a low-quality product. Many fender-benders are caused by people switching lanes suddenly to pick up a few seconds on their drive home. These people are not using time; they are letting time use them.

The Third Major Principle of quality applies to parents in many, many ways. Patience has nothing to do with it, though to someone watching you it might appear to. You might look like you are being extremely patient with your child, while really, you are just happily taking this handy raw material, time, and combining it with other ingredients to create a child in much better shape than most.

The difference, in actual seconds or minutes, between low quality and high quality results is usually astonishingly short. Listen to your child's whole story, instead of interrupting or doing something else. You just converted two or three minutes into a happier child. (Notice, also, that you will get those two or three minutes back hundreds of times over, by not having to handle problems with a child later in life.)

Many times you will have to decide between spending time with your child and doing something else, whether you are a stay-at-home parent or one who works all day while someone else watches the kid. Finding the balance is not easy, but knowing and applying the Third Major Principle of quality makes it easier.

Quality takes time. If you want a child you will be proud of, you have to use enough of your time to produce that product. A balance is necessary, because you are important also. Being a parent does not make you a servant or a slave to a child. And your spouse needs attention, and all those chores. But a balance means equal weight. When you short-change your child-time, all the rest of your life goes out of balance also.

The three Major Principles of Quality all work together. When your friends make fun of you or call you a bad name for not going to the ball game with them so you can go to the zoo with Johnny, Principle Two is in action. When you look at what is best for your child, the First Principle is in play. And when you make sure you tuck her in after reading a story, you are in command of number Three.

The three Major Principles of quality are not the only principles of quality. But they are a good solid foundation, and will take you far toward being an excellent parent.