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Tiny Tips for Moms and Dads #10 “Letting Go of Biases”

Refraining from Judging Our Different Cultural Values and Practices in Raising Our Children.

We parent our children with the intention of doing our best to raise them from a loving heart and mindful thoughtfulness to ensure their wellbeing and social skills to navigate life.

We all parent are children from elements of our own childhood experiences.  We then infuse other practices that we are exposed to. Another element that is part of what we do is crafted from our intuition and cultural values.  An eclectic approach to parenting is my favorite approach to parenting children.  It has got to be your personal decision.  We have to be non-judgmental and supportive of each family’s lifestyle and parenting practices that they choose for their children.

Recognizing that no two families are going to have identical parenting practices even when they have been raised by the same parents in the same home.  Why is this? Well for one thing each child will interpret their experience with their parents differently.  A child’s perspective of what transpired in their childhood curiously enough, stays consistent as even an adult. I get a tickle sometimes when my siblings and I discuss events from our childhood and discover that each of has a different story of what took place.  It is actually quite fun!

I have had the privilege of teaching preschoolers from an array of cultural backgrounds.  There have been times when I would as many as 10-15 different ethnicities represented in my classroom.  It was a joy to dive into aspects of their culture because it gave me an opportunity to explore and engage in their family’s values, culture, and parenting styles.  I learned so much from taking advantage of what I had been gifted as a teacher.

The diversity and complexity of each cultural expression gave me great insight as to not only how parents of different ethnicities value and raise their children but instilled in me the desire to expand and enhance my own parenting skills.  I know without reservation that parents want the best for their children and are concerned about wanting to honor and respect their elders that raised them in conjunction with adapting to the society in which they are raising their children.

No one intentionally wants their children to be out of sync with what other children are experiencing, but at the same time we have an allegiance to honor, respect, and uphold some of the most important tenements of our culture.  We owe it to our children to instill certain family and cultural values in their life’s expression.  So much of who they are is embedded in their DNA, and DNA holds so many of the wonderful secrets of our cultural expressions.

So, my advice today is for us to think about what parenting practices we want to implement with our children that will be appropriate in terms of first the nature of our child, and then in terms of our cultural values that will allow our children to also be confident and secure in how they are being raised.

The joys of parenting are never ending!  If we are awake in our lives and tune into our gift of parenting, this divine destiny path we are on will reap unbelievable rewards!

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Tiny Tips for Moms and Dads- #7

Helping Our Children Identify, Feel Comfortable with, and Find Healthy Ways to Process Their Emotions and Feelings.

Trust me-

One day they are crawling around and before you know it

they are asking for the keys to the car.

As our children grow and develop, more and more of what they feel and deal with in, terms of their emotions and feelings, surface to the forefront. Initially, as infants of course, they are non-verbal, so they have to find other ways to express what they are feeling and experiencing.  As parents we begin to recognize their communication clues and expressions, so that we get better at responding to their needs.  Of course, the task can be both frustrating and at times we can feel helpless.  It takes a lot of love, patience, and fortitude, to be a parent of an infant.  We worry about not being proficient and appropriately responsive to their needs.

The truth is that all parents have these feelings at all stages of their child’s development.  Are we good enough? Are we responsive enough?  Are we meeting their needs?  Do we understand them?  Are we accessible and approachable so that our children feel confident and secure in their relationship with us?  Do we really listen to them?  Are we communicating in a way that there is mutual respect and love in what we say and do with each other?  So many questions run through our minds as parents.  I can’t even begin to know what children are thinking about us as parents.

We have to be guides in supporting and nurturing our children in identifying, feeling comfortable with, and to find healthy ways to process their emotions and feelings.  Even when children evolve in their ability to be verbally expressive about what erupts within them, it is not enough to let things go without talking about the “what”, and “why” they are feeling and experiencing.  We have as parents a responsibility to mentor and guide them in learning how to process their emotions and feelings.  We have to explore ways to do this that feel uniquely and organically appropriate for them.   Now two children are going to be able to process their emotions the same way.  It takes a parent being observant and creative in figuring out what makes your child “tick”. Parents must know that there are so many resources available to them if they too need support.

Remember- what might seem to be a small thing to us, can be gigantic to a child.  If we guide them in acquiring the necessary skills, they need to live a happy, healthy, and productive life, we have done our job as parents.

Stay in Touch: http://heart4kidsadvocacy.org/ 

Tiny Tips for Moms and Dads-#5

Why I am Your Parent and not Your Friend!

We Home School our Grandchildren and this provides us with the opportunity to engage in their learning experiences and to build a relationship that allows us to witness and support their development.

Rachel Carson once said

“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.”

I believe that this is a topic that All parents have to deal with.  We have to really have clarity on what it is and what it means to be a “parent”.  We all have a need to be loved and appreciated by our children.  We want them to like the person we are, and we want to have a special and sacred place in their life.  I would be lying if I said otherwise.  But the truth is that we cannot occupy both roles simultaneously!  We have our own role as parent, and we want our children to have healthy relationships with others throughout their life that can fill the role as their “Friend”. We have a different level of commitment and responsibility than friends do.

We have the opportunity to show our children the beauty and treasure of what friendship can be in their lives.  I believe in conversation, when we are clear about what it is to be a parent, children will be able to understand the difference between what it means to be a parent and what it is to be a friend. Even though each of these relationships carry with them a huge responsibility of trust and commitment, the relationship of being a parent far outweighs that of being a friend.  Good friends are hard to find and even harder to keep.  What we experience throughout our lives is that at times we outgrow our friends and our life’s journey takes us in a different direction.

Children experience some of the same situations, and if they don’t have us to talk this through with them, sometimes it affects them negatively.  So many times, I hear adults reveal an incident that happened in their childhood with rejection from a friend that stunted their ability to trust other people. Many times, when children share these experiences, parents feel that if they ignore these little incidents, it will blow over.  Well, depending on the child’s self-esteem and parental support, some children may or may not bounce back and will take the, what might appear as rejection, personally.

Perhaps because you are not your child’s friend, you are the one true constant in their lives.  You don’t have to tell them what they want to hear or support them in things that might not be their best interest.  Your relationship must be raw with truth and honesty. It does not mean that you are not sensitive, loving, and caring.  It does not mean that you are not respectful of their feelings.  There is that old saying, “that blood (family) is thicker than water”.  This means that we have a connection that will not allow us to reject each other.  We can argue with each other.  We can dislike each other’s actions, but we are destined to love each other.  Love is creative and most of the time we construct our own way of loving someone.

This is not that type of love.  The love we have for our children is something that must be untouchable. It is something that we have a responsibility of safeguarding from society and anyone or thing that is a destructive force against that love. A time will come when you will have to redesign what that parent child relationship might look like, but the core of your relationship is a love that is instinctual.  I go into more depth on this topic in my book- Embracing the Gift of Parenthood.

P.S.- The funny thing is that children feel more secure knowing we are their parent and not their friend.

Stay in Touch: http://heart4kidsadvocacy.org/