Parenting

 A parent’s role is to love, discipline, teach, and provide for their child's needs. When disciplining, parents need to be respect, kind, and firm to their children. As a result their child is more willing to comply. If anyone is yelling, demanding or disrespectful it is almost impossible to listen or comply. One of the key principles of parenting is to listen to their children and helping them to solve their problems rather than fix their problems for them.  As a parent it is essential to focus not what the child is doing but what they are becoming. Parenting is also a team work because you are working with your spouse to provide discipline and fulfilling a family’s needs equally. In other words if a child went to a parent their answer would be the same because their parents are on the same mindset.

 Disciplining is teaching your children what is acceptable and tolerated at home, school and within families. Parents might confuse logical and natural consequences with punishment. A classic example is sending their child to their room. Parents could possible see the logic but to a child there might be no connection to the punishment and the misbehavior. A logical consequence would be to teach them about the misbehavior and help them correct it. By only punishing a child their needs are not being met and not learning from their behavior. There are many reasons why a child might misbehave but usually a child misbehaves because a physical or emotional need is not being met. 

Parenting is one of the utmost sacrifices within a family. My mom once described parenting as, “When you first become a parent you are taking care of your child’s needs first and then think about yourself. By the end of the day you really don’t have time for yourself. It doesn’t matter how tired you are or how much you don’t want to take care of your family. Even though your children might not like what you say and do a parent always takes care of their children because they love them.” I know my parents sacrificed much and have never given up on me. Now that I’m independent, I’ve recognized more and more all that my parents did for me. It is so reassuring that even though I’m on my own, I still have my parent’s support and love. You are never done being a parent! In my future family, I hope to adopt some the parenting principles that my parent's raised me.