Joe Burris is here to tell you exactly what to do, even though he's never met you.

No, not really. But, as he explains, that's how lots of dads (and moms) feel when people are quick to tell us we're doing something wrong with our kids:

On one recent afternoon, my wife was entertaining friends while I put our three-year-old daughter Onalenna down for a nap. I emerged from our daughter’s bedroom to see astonished looks on the faces of her friends; they wondered why it took our daughter more than 40 minutes to fall asleep.

And they insisted that I must be doing something wrong.

I replied that though there are some general traits involving child sleep, each child is different, and, like adults, some often take longer to nod off than others.

Nothing doing, they said.

In fact one, who ironically is childless, said that she’s always read how toddlers are supposed to fall asleep within 10 minutes of being put down for a nap.

They both offered some suggestions on how I can do better at naptime. Neither bothered to ask whether I had tried some of their suggestions beforehand (I had).

If there is one peeve I’ve developed in 12 years of fatherhood, it’s people who feel compelled to offer unsolicited parenting advice. That’s due in part because most of these folks could be divided into two groups: Those who have difficulty raising their own kids and those who don’t have kids. They seem convinced that there’s a world out there in dire need of their critique and counsel.

Never mind that they rarely offer unsolicited compliments.

I’m sure that many of these folks mean well, and I admit there have been moments where I’ve benefitted from their counsel.

But show me someone who offers such unsolicited advice and I’ll show you a parent who’s often left feeling guilt-ridden because of it.

Most parents already spend ample time second guessing their parenting. Yet I know of mothers who worry needlessly because friends mentioned growth-and-weight percentile charts to which children don’t measure up, and fathers who fall silent when relatives cast aspersions on their children’s eating habits.

Sometimes I have more patience for unsolicited comments than others. Once while in a pediatrician’s office, I chastised my then 4-year-old daughter Nyaniso for playing with the window blinds when I had asked her to stop. The pediatrician said that Dr. Spock would have wanted me to handle the situation more delicately.

“That might be true,” I replied, “but I’m not raising Dr. Spock’s child.”

There are times, however, when I do seek parenting advice, and most often I turn to people whose children have grown up to be the kind of young adults I want my daughters to be.

Most offer an array of suggestions, but all of them end with the same refrain.

“Do the best you can.”

That’s the most poignant advice anyone can give.