FWIW Reg, here’s my take as a dad…with regards to interaction with the good & bad, the rewards & consequences, of childrearing scenarios.   If you go in meaning well, inputs fully on from conception, aware of the miracle of it all, then face each pickle with the notion that you’ll take the (diligent) ruddy & hard-won path instead of the (do what I say, not what I do/swipe of a hand) shortcut path in as many instances as your energy can handle (sometimes we’re just too doggone exhausted to take the ruddy path), then, somehow, the brilliant fatherly stuff just comes to you…like a divine & clever scroll or the finishing pieces of the fossil you're digging around in good ground for.  Maybe it sounds trite, but all my best Heathcliff Huxtable moments have…just come-to-mind and rolled off my conscience with verve and sweet poetry whenever I gave completely into the moment, no matter how tricky or exasperating the circumstances.  Cool thing is, they get it…over time they actually show signs of having benefited humanly/intellectually, emotionally, spiritually by the lectures and examples, the rewards & consequences.  The respects paid them by a mom & pop who have held them in the highest regard since moment uno…and the revelations garnered through pissing me off to no end…& then watching me aim at patience, fairness, & just conclusions on their behalf as well as my bride’s & mine...have set the tone for inspired lives (best I can see). 

Growing up, I don’t believe I got from my childhood near what my sons have gotten from theirs…&…well, good enough.