Friday, April 30, 2010

Follow Friday

Friday Follow

Is Friday!! WooHoo!! And time leave my thoughts in this blogosphere and follow some more today.. I visited some new ones regarding parenting and the thoughts on being a parent. So don't be scared and come over and see me sometime.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

My Feelings on Father hood

Today I would like to state my feelings on being a father. With another child soon to be here, the doom and gloom guys have appeared once again on my shoulders. You know the guys who tell you how things aren't going to work out and how bad things will be or any other negative idea they can think of to keep you down. Well, as they sit on my shoulders arguing on how much sleep or lack of I'm going to receive with the new baby, I'm thinking about being a father.

I must say I'm lucky to have wife who love me enough to bare three of my kids so far, each getting here in their own unique way, but that's another story. And though she feels I'm not the most sympathetic person, as I don't do everything" she wants me to do for her during these months of "baby cooking," I must say that I do love being a father.

Besides getting the "child choice" ties on father day, I love the opportunity to watch my offspring grow. To see the fruits of my labor develop into this unique individual, while knowing half of those chromosomes are mine-and it's my good ones that are doing all the work (joke). But besides those perk, I do realize it's hard being a father. As such a large number of familes now are only single parents familes and majority of those homes are fatherless. A father is a precious thing, I know this, and that is why I do my best to spend time with my children, each giving them the a little of me each time. Whether it is a story, a game, scolding if there misbehaving, or laughter when they are feeling down. I'm silly on purpose, chasing them around and let them beat me up least until I get too tired or the accidently hit below the belt. I enjoy hearing their successes and it saddens me of their failures. But I try to encourage them to keep their head up and keep trying. As my belief is like my mothers, "as long as your doing your very best, and I know you during your very best, I proud regardless of the result." I'm made the disciplinarian so I know my children won't tell me everything, even if I want to, but that's ok too. Because I know the fear they have now, will graduate into respect later as I continue to treat them with love, compassion, and understanding while meeting their basic needs. Fatherhood is something I am learning and will continue to learn. It's not an automatic, instinctual thing you feel or that awakens, You have to learn, make mistakes (pray none of them get you on Oprah or Dr Phil) and continue to do you best. But when it's all said and done, I want to be able to look back and say "I did good, and they are alright".

So to all the dad or mom who read this blog, thank your dad, stepdad, uncle, granddad, or any male role model who was there for you. and If you didn't have one, become that dad you wanted as a kid.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Now How Does That Make You Feel : Empathy vs. Sympathy

After Follow Friday was a positive for me, I visited several of the websites that followed me. Which was quite fun and amusing, I was visiting Take a Mom's Word for It at http://takeamomswordforit.blogspot.com/ and I came across a question submitted by one of her followers.. the question submitted was "my little girl who is 5 does not know how to be sympathetic to other kids when they get hurt anyone have any suggestions thanks" I thought about this and realized that this was a common questions I received from concern parents.

Sympathy is a great emotions as it allows others to associate with other living things, often relating, which in turn can help the thing your associating with. For an example. A young man, that you do not know, named John fall and hurt himself while playing on the playground. You watched John fall and hurt himself and recall you fell three months ago (touching your arm in the spot that is healed now). John gets up crying and you feel sad suddenly and is concerned about John's wellbeing. You walk over to help John and see if he is ok. That feeling of sadness and concern you have for John is what we want our children to possess, so that they can be an asset to our community. However, this emotion will not come for a while. Sympathy is what I term a "graduate emotion." A graduate emotion is an emotion that evolves or graduates from a lesser one or group of emotions that the person masters.

Parents must first teach their child(ren) how to be empathetic before they can learn to be sympathetic. Empathy is the art of projection. The person uses their imagination and projects the object's (feelings) onto themselves and emerges with it. This is taught by the parent when we discuss feelings with the child and how they should feel. An example of this is: how often we say to our child " how would you feel if this happened to you" or "See that little boy's face, how do you think he feels?" This is done with every opportunity the child have with the parent and in different scenarios and situation. The parent will know when empathy have graduated to sympathy as the child will demonstrate sympathy around you. Often sharing emotions with other living things.

Some ways to teach empathy:

1. As suggested by Kady at Take a Mom's Word for It, reading books. It is always great to read to the child. This promotes bonding, is a conversation starter and demonstrates a value in education
2. When the child watches Television, talk about the shows with the child while watching also. Time together helps build bonding
3. Demonstrate empathy yourself, children learn more form our actions than or words
4. Praise wanted behaviors from the child, when empathy is demonstrated engage the child and have them explain their feelings.

These are just a few tips for teaching the child empathy. If you know any more please feel free to leave a comment.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Follow Friday

Friday Follow

I have heard about Follow Friday and thought I would check it out. Today I have visited quite a few new blogs so it was well worth the time to see others thoughts about parenting and being a parent. If you get a chance check some out for yourself.


Tuesday, April 20, 2010

My Kids won't listen? What can I do?

The above questions are presented to me regularly by parents I work with. And I give them same answer each time-"because you are not listening to them." The parent would then stop look at me in bewilderment and wait for an explanation. I inform them that just as adults want to be heard, children do as well. They begin in life requesting our attention (crying) and will continue this until they leave the home. And as parents, we will have to learn to listen to them. This can be hard to do as they will present things that you do not like or understand but it is required to develop the relationship. So how do you start your children to listening to you?

1. Ask then what the problem really is? This may take time and the child may not really know what's occurring or even the issues

2. Make sure you remain consistence with your request/demand of the child. Remember You are the parent and are responsible for the child's wellbeing

3. Make the consequences meet the crime. just as you would not get life in prison for a simple traffic ticket, your child should not be grounded for weeks for minor infractions

4. When you child talks, be quiet and be an attentive listen, its the unspoken words that really tell you what the child is feeling.

These are just a few of the things you can do to engage and help your child to listen to you. Try these things and let me know what results you receives.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Raining on your child's parade

In my job, I often have the opportunity to see bad parenting in action, which I take as a blessing and a curse. These parents provide me with a steady source of "what not to do's" and possible strategies to coach them into the right direction. But one thing that really bothers me is the parent who "rains on their child's parade" and not the unknowingly times, which we may all do in any given part of our child life. But the deliberate act of "Rain causing, bubble popping" really bothers me.

Most children have limited times in there life when they are really proud of their accomplishments-a picture drawn, good grades, the winning shot in a sporting event, remembering to do ALL their chores without request. And as parents this is the perfect opportunity to cultivate the child's self esteem. To support this positive behavior and give the child an opportunity to shine. However, there are some parents who feel that any sign of your child's success is either a threat to their authority, or a personal strike against their character and will "rain on" the child. Either through direct belittling the act with mean statements, ignoring, or just being plain mean spirited. This is shameful and created an sense of anger, and distrust in the child.

So How can this be corrected.
1. The parent can first listen to the child and acknowledge what the child has done-a simple smile does wonders
2. The parent need to think of why the child behavior cause that un easy feeling. Was it the way it was said (presented)? Was the act of the child doing something you wanted to do? And yes as parents we can be jealous of our children accomplishments. Once realized the need to addressed by the parent and corrected.
3. To correct this behavior we as parents, will have to seek help from others and apologize to the child for raining on their parade.

Because remember the child is always learning from the parent and soon will be doing the same to you or others. And when this occurs in the public realm, school, church or shopping center-embarrassments will soon follow. And the family as a whole will suffer

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

A Lion and the Kitty

I reviewed Parents magazine article entitled "Discipline Differences", pg 54, May 2010. It was a very interesting on how the different parent styles of the parents often cause problems within the family structure. The article presented several families and the issues cause between several beliefs. A good read. But don't go on my statement. Go out and get the magazine to see for yourself

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Am I too Hard on my kids?

Discipline vs. Punishments

One thing I recall as child was my mother's punishments. She was a believer of corporal punishment and would use it when deemed necessary. The memories of picking my own switch or switches to teach me right from wrong still leaves me squirming as I write this. The sounds of your heart beating in your ear and the uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach while selecting the tool of the trade. If you got one to little she will try it on you and make you get another one, get one to big and you would hurt yourself. So you finally learned how to pick a switch-the right size after trail and error. I got to the point of not caring about a switching as much as I got older and come to despise her other form of punishment as she called it-The removal. She would take something from you and would state, "You will get this back when I'm good and ready". Which translated to you would NEVER get it back. Now I don't want people to think my mom was a like the mother from the movie "Mommy Dearest" or like the mom from "Carrie." not by any means, she just used several techniques of child rearing that fell in the category of impropriate punishment. I never felt that I was abused by her nor that she did not love me dearly, which I know she does; however, I have learned that the old way of doing things is exactly that the old way. Children need to be taught (discipline) not beat (punishment) into productive citizens. What do you think? Is their a proper place for punishment? Do the pressures of society force parents to choose improper parenting techniques? Or even to be scared to discipline their children at all?