You ever heard your mother say to you when you were growing up "I cant wait until you have kids so you can see what I have to go through"? And you had it in your mind that you're never going to whoop your kids or your kids ain't gonna act like that anyway. Well I said the same thing and guess what? I won't get into detail but my mother was right!
So after all the commotion and my brain has slowed down, I got to thinking about a lot of different things. I started thinking about myself as a pre-teen and also as a teenager. I made some dumb decisions as a child and I had to come to terms with myself that daughter is only 11. She hasn't been on this earth long enough to really understand anything. While I know that she is smarter than the average 11 year old, she is actually extremely naive to what's really going on around her.
As a parent I have questioned myself often on whether or not im teaching the right things or am I doing something completely opposite of what I should be doing. I see parents (particularly mothers) doing and saying things in front of their children that are so inappropriate. Cursing them out in public, smacking them around like they're grown. I find it shocking no matter how many times I see it. But is that the way to teach a child not to do something? Is there a right and a wrong way to raise a child or to teach right and wrong?
To me there is no right way. All you can really do is pass on your knowledge and hope that they absorb it. 9 times of 10 its in one ear and right out the other and they completely disregard everything that you've said.
I've discovered that some parents that I have spoken with are too embarrassed to talk about certain things with their children. They think that their children are too young to hear about sex or drugs and even just saying the words "vagina" or "penis" might be too much. The truth is that before you even realize it, they already know what that stuff is. Its all over the place. You can't hide any of it.
Some parents find that spanking or whooping a child is the way. I've handed out a few whoopins but honestly what's the point? If I was a kid, my thought would be "oh all you're going to do is whoop me and its over? Well I can deal with that. " And they get in trouble again and again. Yeah it hurts but you're not teaching anything. I can hit you all day but if you don't understand why then what is the point?? I'm not a Bible thumper but correct me if I'm wrong. The Bible pretty much says that you can beat your kids and they won't die so its ok, but if you don't they won't learn their lesson (spare the rod, spoil the child). I believe that people live by this. I don't see a huge issue with it but some people go overboard. beating until they just totally swollen is just crazy to me. Hearing all these stories of kids being beat until they're dead is ridiculous. Now trust me I have had some serious whoopins in my lifetime but nothing that I couldn't get over. Sure I called myself running away from home but that was a failure. You cant whoop kids forever. I know that I'm too old to be trying to hit a child thats the same size as me. But I'm not one to tell anyone how raise their child so if you beat, beat on.
Sheltering a child is another method that parents use to keep their kids away from LIFE. No R rated movies, you can't go outside and play because you'll fall, there's a lot of crazies out there, no you can't spend the night over there because I heard (insert what you heard), etc. So hiding the reality of life is the way? Totally disagree. I don't hide anything from my kids. What's the point? They can go anywhere and see the stuff they want to see. Some people may not agree with me but I don't cover my daughter's ears when there is cursing in a movie or on the radio. But i do make her cover her eyes when there's sex on TV. I'm sure her friends are cursing and she has to stand at the bus stop in the morning near a corner store so I know theres a lot of cursing going on there. Hell I cuss like a sailor. Allowing your child to experience the outside is how they learn to adapt to society and develop social skills. I know mad amounts of children that have no idea of how to deal with certain situations in public because they have been stuck in the house or simply because they have no home training. Treating a child like a baby until they are 12 and 13 is the ticket to destruction. I know of some adults that were sheltered and ended up with 5 or 6 babies by the time they were 25. When you lock a kid up and wait until they are too old to let them experience the world they get loose. Street smarts are not taught. You have to actually get into a situation to learn how to handle it. Do i let my daughter rome the streets freely? of course not! Is she allowed to go the movies with her friends without me? Absolutely. Do I let her go to the park with her friends? Absolutely. My Mom let us hang out with certain restrictions so why not? They have to learn to be responsible at some point. Waiting until they are damn near out of high school is not the answer in my opinion. But if thats what you want to do, shelter away.
Our kids are going to do stupid stuff throughout their lives. There's no way to avoid it. We cant be with them 24/7. We cant watch their every step, we can't protect them from every boy or girl out there, we cant prevent every fall that they may take. All we can do is be there for the kids after it happens. We are going to get mad, we are going to cry, we are going to be disappointed. But it's all a part of parenting. Nobody ever said that it would be easy. We all think that it will be easy when they can't walk or talk and they want to snuggle with you all the time. They grow up, they observe, they start to imitate things that we don't want them to imitate, they start wanting to find themselves. And when they finally find themselves (or think they have) we as parents can take most of the credit because at some point they are going to do something dumb during that journey. The first person they run to is YOU. Get mad. Cry with them. Thats your job. But they MUST know that you are there no matter what. We absolutely hated having to punish our daughter but the foot had to come down. It broke our hearts but we did it. And in the process she figured out that we are there to help and not hinder.
The JOYS of parenting...
