The aim of life is learning
How to be yourself
How to be good
How to love
I want to express my thoughts and opinioins on a very serious subject that is close to most of us; parenting. Either we are parents, or have parents, any way you look at it we all have some kind of knowledge in this area. Our views on parenting will very usually depending on how we ourselves were parented. Parents are role models; they have absolute direct involvelment on how children will view the world. Time for people to realize the importance of this.
There is a difference between parenting and fathering, or mothering, a child. Any one can be a sperm or egg donar. It takes a special kind of person to actually parent. Dictionary.com defines parent as a mother, or father, an ancestor, precursor, or progenitor. A protector or guardian. A progenitor is a person that first indicates a direction, originates something, or serves as a model; basically a teacher and role model.
There is no greater career then being a parent. Yes I do mean career. When you choose to be a parent you are making a life choice. That is, no matter how old your kids get you will always be a parent. How you parent changes constently, but the fact that you are one does not. Stick with me here, I will put it all together for you. :)
Some people do not choose to have children. Making a choice is an act, or instance, of choosing, it is making a sleection. It is a right, a power, an opportunity. So if a child is brought into the world where a mother, or father, did not actively think about the choice of becoming pregnant, and being a parent, what is the child taught before it is even brought into the world? And I say mother/father because my opinion is that people who choose to not think about getting pregnant usually do not understand the choice of being a parent.
In my choosen field of work I have seen more people, than I care to give too much thought to (because it is genuinally depressing), that have not made the conscious choioce to parent. The end result runs such a wide gambit of consequences that there are too many to list and discuss in this blog. What I do want to say is PLEASE think before having sex, USE birth control and for the sake of your unborn child LEARN how to be a good parent! Your child depends on YOU!
What I am leading up to here is this. I think it is actually time to give praise to people who are great parents. I am going to give you the signs of recognizing a great, even good, parent so that when you see them you can praise them. Being a good parent is a thankless, exhausting, volunteer career. More people should be prasied for doing a good job. So how to recognize a good parent.
- Express love and affection. Say I love you daily. Give hugs, kisses and nice loving touches. Love unconditionally. Here's details on this so its not so generic. Be loving to everyone in the house not just the kids. Parents should use all expressions of love with each other daily also. Your children need to learn how to have a healthy relationship; they will learn this from you. The unconditional love thing? Thats easy; mistakes happen. Ive said it a billion times we learn from our mistakes. Children need to make them in order to not only learn, but to learn to be confident. So if they make one ease up! Chances are its a small little thing that can be easily fixed. Teach them how to fix it and make sure you have their back. That does not mean fix the problem for them that means stand behind them while they do it themselves.
- PRAISE! I dont understand why this one seems to hard for people? But it is. Dont compare your child to other children. Celebrate differences! So what if they cant play sports, chances are they have another stremgth that is awesome! Teach that being different is good! Do we really want to all be the same? Borrrrrrring! Remember that your child is an extension of you; so if you criticize them you are by default criticizeing yourself. Think about it.
- Focus on the behavior. This is not as tricky as it sounds. Ignore the barage of mean spiteful things coming out of their mouth and calmly remind them that this behavior is not allowed in our home. Model the behavior you want to see. If you swear I guarentee your kid will. Even if you have programmed them enough to not do it in front of you, you will eventually get a phone call from school, another parent, or child care, sharing the language that your child is sharing with everyone else. NEVER publically humiliate your child. If you cant wait to get home to discipline something then make sure you are being respectful. I remember living in a neighborhood where there was a father who screamed, yelled and swore at the top of his lungs to his young 8 year old son almost daily. I was personally more embarrassed for the father then the son. I bet this father was genuinally shocked and perplexed when he got phone calls about his son acting this way with other people too. Be assertive, use your whisper voice and be to the point. Remember Charlie Browns teacher,"blah blah blah blah blah?" This is what kids here when they stop listening. And they will stop listening to you when youve been talking to long. You want them to hear you? And you want to make sure they understood what you were teaching them? Ask when you are done,"Explain to me, in your words, what I just said." Youll learn to edit yourself pretty quickly. :)
- Be consistent and follow through. When a rule is broken it must have the same consequences every single time. You have to have the same consequences for everyone in the house, yes that means you too. House rules are good. These are rules that apply to everyone in the house and empower EVERYONE, kids too, to remind others of the rules. No swearing means for everyone. Pick up after yourself means everyone. In our house if someone left a mess in a certain room then they were in charge of cleaning the whole room. No one wanted to clean a whole room so they learned to pick up after themselves. Includeing me and their dad. The day our sons got to remind their dad then watch him vacuum and dust the family room was great family fun for all! (Dad too) Be consistent with your anger also. Teaching children anger management is an invaluable tool. Now be careful here. Anger management does not mean teaching kids to not be angry; that line of reasoning can be dangerous too. What it does mean is this; model how to take a calm down time,"I am feeling too angry right now to discuss this with you when I have calmed down we will talk." It means taking deep breaths, counting to ten, and using a whisper voice instead of yelling. My kids (and even hubby) know that I am really upset when I whisper and tell them I cant be in the same room as them until further notice. The cool thing about this is usually I dont need to tell them what they did. In the time that the calm down time is going on they figure it out, apologize and fix the probelm if they can.
- LISTEN to them!! I dont care how long your day was. I dont care if your boss is and ass, or the people you work with are idiots. I dont care if it was a long hot drive home! Your kids look forward to seeing you and telling you about their day. Sure they may act like they dont want to but they do. They want to know that someone cares. SO ASK and then LISTEN! Dont edit them, dont correct them, dont stare at the tv or computer while they are talking. Use your good listening skills. Ask questions about what they are telling you. I remember my eldest coming home from school when he was about 10 all depressed. I asked how his day was and I got the generic,"ok." After asking more detailed questions like what did you have for lunch, who did you play with on the playground etc etc I found out that his best friend was mad at him. I asked what happened and we problem solved how he could make it better. He was happier the next day. Another note about listening. Listening to a teenager and young adult tell you everything they know about the world and the people in it can be frustrateing. We all know that sometimes they really dont have a clue. But if you jump in, correct them and stop listening you will end up with a rebellious adolescent that will stop talking to you and more importantly stop listening to you. The only way to truly know what they are doing when they are not with you is to listen and keep an open mind about what you are hearing. Remember they are not you and they will find different ways of dealing with their life that work for them. Its a good thing!
- Make them feel safe. A child living in a home where there is abuse of any kind going on does not feel safe. Ive had more then one mother who has been the victim of domestic violence ask me why her children were taken away from her. Stateing always that they would never let anyting happen to their children. I look them calmly in the eyes and say very respectfully, politely and matter of factly that they have already allowed harm to come to thir children. What are you and your husband role modeling to them? No one ever thinks that what a child experiences will leave a lasting impression, but it does. The instances that it doesnt are small. There is a difference between argueing and fighting in front of your kids too. There is eveidence out there now that suggests that when your kids never see you argue they dont learn valuable negotiation skills. Fighting is destructive, hurtful and has no means to the end. Dont send them out of the room when you argue. Let them see how to do it properally. Use the same techniques used for anger management. Other things to make them feel safe? Dont favor one child over another. And respect their privacy. We have always taught our children that their room is their space, but their space is in our house. As long as they gave us no reason to invade their space their privacy would be respected. And that means keeping their space in our house clean. :)
- Set boundaries. The way you choose to eat, sleep, drink, keep your house, make friends, share your house, etc etc are all things that a child needs to learn. Its ok to say no! Its ok if they dont want to give grandma a hug or kiss. Its ok if they dont always want to share. Ask them why if they dont want to, mabey there is a good reason! When a child feels empowered to take care of themselves, to be healthy, to say no, they learn the skills necessary to set appropriate boundaries as adults. I mean really...do you want to worry about who they are hanging out with when your not around? I know that my sons hang out with persons who I dont exactly approve of, but I also know that they will say no if their, or someone elses life is in danger. Heres another thought, moms especially are guilty of this. When you make a choice to not take time for yourself you are teaching your child to not take care of themself. It is ok to not always be a mom and be you everyonce in awhile. Some day you will not be a mom 24/7; what will you do then? Hopefully you will not have forgotten who you were before you were a mom/wife. We do a far better job parenting when we are healthy happy individuals. Role model this to your kids.
- Spend time individually with your kids. Sometimes Joe or I would only take one kid out at a time; then we compare notes. My eldest talks more openly with me, our youngest with my husband. My husband and I talk to each other. The kids know this. We parent together; not alone. But we know the kids are more comfortacle with one of us more than the other. We never make a parenting decision with out consulting the other one first. We also do things that our kids like. My husband takes my youngest to car shows. My eldest and I discuss computer games and psychology stuff. I have taken our youngest o the House of Blues for concerts. My husband plays Call of Duty with our eldest. Its kinda cool. :) Taking an interest in their individuality teaches them to take an interest in you as a person, not just a parent.
- Give it up. If you smoke and you dont want your kids to then you have to stop. If you are an alcoholic chances are at some time your kid will drink. If you do drugs, so will your kids. If you want them to eat healthy then you do too. If you want them to exercise then you have to also. If you want them to learn to be tolerant then you have to be. If you want them to understand that being different is good...then be different. You dont have to be perfect you just have to try. And if you make a mistake say your sorry then set about teaching them, through role modeling, how to not repeat the mistake. If a mistake is repeated more then three times it becomes a pattern of behavior and then a possible problem. Hence the parenting tool of three strikes and you are out. Have some compassion. Dont let them get to this point. Make sure you have done everything to make them successful before three strikes happen. Not everything is a behavior problem, ADHD, depression or some other mental or emotional diagnosis; sometimes someone is just not doing there job! Which leads me to another thought. There is NOTHING that is more harmful to a child of divorced parents (or parents who have a child together) then to have his parents talk badly about each other. They want you to get along and just parent them together. Kids are smart. They understand if you dont want to be married anymore. What they dont understand is your inability to parent them together. Parenting your child has nothing to do with your failed marriage so just get over it. Use your anger management skills and work it out. By the way! Dont acuse someone of sexual abuse to a child randomly just to gain leverage over a divorce situation. Dont accuse someone of being a dead beat mom or dad if they are not. And dont take a child away from a parent just because you are still pissed about a failed marrige. As an eternal advocate for children I am going to tell anyone, who has used any of these techniques, for them to GROW UP!
I think that it is sad that one of our natural protected rights, which is to have children, has gone so wrong for so many kids. No child deserves to be exposed to so much confusion from the people who are suppose to be providing them with all of the nine points mentioned. I am actually in that group of people who think that parenting is a privledge, not a right. When you have known 7 kids of the same mother and father who are drug and alcohol abusers; all of which have disabilitys ranging from learning disabilitys to cerebral palsey and they keep on bringing kids into the world you form a very strong opinion about parenting. I would not have choosen for any of these wonderful loving children to not be born. Nor would I have choosen for any of these kids to never have lived with their parents form the time they were born; the state would immediateley take them away and place them in foster care. This went on for 10 years for these kids and when it was time to place them they were seperated. Who wants to take on seven kids all at once? Three of which have very specialized health care needs. This is one story, there are more. I use this one becuase it is an example of how our system is so broken. We are so concerned about the rights of parents that we forget about the rights of children. Yes there are laws out there that are suppose to protect children, but sometimes they do more harm then good. It is also a career field where people are over worked, underpaid and way under appreciated. There are so few of us that still feel passionate about it after 10 years.
The Pith of the Matter? I think that some of this could be easily remedied. All it takes is for more people to hear that they are doing a great job with their kids. Sure notice the parents who are trying to do everything right from the get go. The mom who shows up to every school function, the dad who volunteers to coach and do scouts. But more importantly, that young mom in Walmarts who looks no more than 16 with a screaming child in her basket and is still being petient and loving. The single dad who is with out a job because he needed a job that fit the needs of his parenting schedule and is struggling to take care of his kids; but still takes them to the park to play with them and the library to read to them. The blended familys that despite all the flack they get refuse to say crappy things about their ex's and set healthy loving boundaries in their home. The 20 year old big sister who chooses to put off going to school to keep her brothers and sisters our of foster care. There are so many of these kinds of familys out there now, and many many other kinds of heroic storys. So lets remember that the traditional family in America is not like the Brady Bunch, never was, and give praise to what is real! It is how you can make a difference!
"You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child." DOGEN
No comments:
Post a Comment