"Being a parent is like building a boat that you eventually will launch. The building process is gratifying, but so is launching the boat and seeing that what you've built can handle the seas. At some point as a parent, you've got to start getting your child ready to launch.
(Steinburg, Laurence, The 10 Basic Principles of Good Parenting, page 85)
In parenting, it is easy to research the early years of our child's development. We sometimes forget to research for the later years. This is also very important to research. We need to understand the developments that our child is going through in the moment so that we can better relate to them. As our children get older our parenting styles need to change and adapt to our growing child. By changing our parenting technique, we think that we have failed as parents. This is not so, we've just become better.
It is important to find time to spend one on one time with each of our children. In a busy world, it's hard to find the time, but it is so important. My daughter loves to stay up late, reading with me or doing activities. This is her seeking that one on one attention. I need to be better at setting time away to spend time with her. I've noticed that she does a lot better if she has had some physical contact through the day. It is also important to keep the tallies even between the kids. My daughter has a hard time coming home and seeing something that her brother got on our errands of the day. She feels like she has been treated unfairly. What she doesn't remember are those day before she started school that we did the same things for her.
In The 10 Basic Principles of Good Parenting, it mentions that sometimes we have to take the extra time to help our children adapt to their new surroundings. When my daughter started preschool, the first day I just kind of "threw" her in and said, "Have a good day, Darling." After 3 weeks I couldn't figure out why she didn't enjoy it. Then I realized that she didn't really feel like she knew anyone. I then had to go out of my comfort zone and meet some of the kids in her class, and their moms. It wasn't till we started having play dates with the other kids, that she finally started enjoying school.
Fast forwarding a couple of years, to this school year, the first day of school turned out to be a crazy one. I had to sign my son up for preschool at the very time that my daughter had to go to school. My husband was working from home at the time, but could offer no help. So I called my friend and asked if she could pick up my daughter. The plan was that I would dash over to her school just as soon as I had finished at the preschool. She was ok with that. However it turned out to be a rainy day, so the kids weren't allowed on the playground. My daughter had missed Meet the Teacher, so she didn't know where her classroom was, she didn't know who her teacher was, she was on a different playground and just didn't know what to do. Luckily this same friend of mine, saw the look of terror on her face and walked her to class for me and made sure that she was were she was supposed to be. That day I was so thankful for a surrogate mom who could fill my shoes when I couldn't be there.
It is important to be involved with in your child's life. If you don't have the same interests, create some. The other day when I was on LDS.org I saw an interesting article. It is titled "Parents, Teens Strengthen Relationships Through Social Media"
Parents,Teens Strengthening their Relationships Through Social Media It so important is our world today to know what are kids are doing, and saying online. We, as parents, need to be technology savvy to keep up with our kids. (I have a long ways to go-Luckily my kids are still young. I will have time to learn.)
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