You’re at the store and you see a parent talking rudely to their kids. Or letting them run around like it’s their house. You read some news story about some terrible parenting strategy that drives you nuts. Or maybe it’s closer to home and you don’t like how much time your spouse is spending on their phone.

You know what you should do about this? You should focus on being a better parent yourself.

Our energy does not go very far when simply emoted into the world in the form of disappointment or judgment. Our outrage at the world does not put us in a better headspace with our own families. Nagging our spouse doesn’t make our relationship better.

The best place for our energy, for our focus, is internally. Because that’s what we control. And let’s face it, there is more than enough room for improvement in ourselves. We all live in glass houses as parents–casting stones is not only misguided, it’s a form of child neglect.

Let us try to improve ourselves more than we judge others. Let us focus on what we actually control. And perhaps, if we really do this, we’ll become, over time, a model that might nudge others in the right direction too.