Parenting

Week 11 Blog Post

 “To you who are parents, I say, show love to your children. You know you love them, but make certain they know it as well. They are so precious. Let them know.” – Thomas S. Monson

This week in class we talked about parenting. We started out by discussing active parenting. A question he made us ask ourselves was “What do I hope to accomplish through parenting?” Here are the things I wrote down;

·     -    Raise children who have good values and morals

·      -   Created a safe and secure relationship with my children

·      -   Parent with love

·        - Provide a safe home where they feel loved and accepted no matter what.

·         -Let them know that it is okay to make mistakes.

·         -Allow them to make mistakes. This is how they will learn

·         -Make sure they feel listened to and validated

·         -Help them create a good self-esteem and self-worth

When seriously dating someone you are considering marrying, I think it would be wise to talk about each other’s parenting goals and techniques and make sure they align for the most part.

One thing my professor pointed out is that oftentimes our perceptions of God align with out parents. If our parents were harsh and cold and didn’t offer much love and support that is how we will view God. How do we want our children viewing God? We should be warm and loving and understanding and offer our support. We went our children to have a good relationship and positive view of God as their father.

Something that my professor said that I really liked was;

“You are always teaching by example, especially when you’re not.”

What does this mean to you?

Children have 5 basic needs. They are;

1.      Contact/ belonging (a lack of physical contact or sense of belonging leads to developmental issues.) When children don’t get the needs of human contact met, they take mistaken approaches.

2.      Power- the ability to influence their own world and make choices.

3.      Withdrawal- children need the ability to take breaks

4.      Challenge-

5.      Protection

What should be the parental approach when trying to meet these needs?

-       -   Offer contact freely to your children

-        -  Teach children to contribute

-          -Response ability= choices + consequences

-          -Teach children to take a break. Work together and break together.

-          -Brain development relies on experiencing consequences of their own choices

-          -Skill building

Another quote from class that really wraps up this part of my post is;

“You can never get enough of what you don’t need because what you don’t need won’t satisfy you.”

This applies to children and their needs because if they aren’t getting their needs met, they will look elsewhere to get those fulfilled. Oftentimes the places they look for those needs to be met in other places that could be more harmful to them. Make sure you pay attention to your specific child’s needs and try and meet them.

A good point my teacher made was even us as adults have certain needs, such as contact, love, hunger, and thirst. When these needs aren’t being met, we tend to look other places to satisfy that. If I am not getting any human contact, I may look for a NCMO, or a one-night thing with someone just to get that need met. The example my professor gave was oftentimes we think we are hungry so we begin snacking on things and then we eventually realize that we were just thirsty. We have to pay attention to our own specific needs and make sure they are being met for own well-being.