By Eve, age 15 Okay, so first there's the obvious stuff. Someone who can identify, be patient, and is good at disciplining in a nice way - firm and gentle. Like in A Family Apart, where the guy who adopts Frances Mary tells her to "keep your hands firm and your voice gentle." (He was teaching her how to work with horses.) Identify: There are times when a kid wants their parent to identify with them - to just laugh and admit they made the same dumb mistakes. Because when you tell parents something you felt bad about, they're invariably going to launch into this great speech about why it's not so bad, why you shouldn't feel that way, what you should have done instead -- and it's like sometimes you don't want that.