When you find out your having a baby you might not think
about what kind of parent you want to be.
Or if you’re like me then you thought about it constantly. I thought I knew exactly what kind of parent
I wanted to be. I was going to strong
but loving. I would put my foot down and
put rules down for my daughter to follow.
I would never spank her. I would
never lose my patience. This list could
go on and on. I read book after book
about parenting.
Now I have my daughter and I’m learning something very important. A lot of the parenting is something you do as
you go. I was scared to death for the
first 6 months of her life. I felt the
need to do everything by the book and anything my doctor said was like the word
from god. Then I started to loosen up
some. I stopped reading every baby book
I could get my hands on. I stopped sanitizing
everything my daughter might touch.
Around 1 year, I stopped making schedules for her.
I’m still learning.
She’s almost 2 now and I have spanked her on occasion. Although I’m perfecting timeouts now (thanks
to some advice from friends) and I think its working. I thought I had planned out what kind of
parent I wanted to be as she got bigger, but now I really think I’ll just play
it by ear.
Like in school, I think there is a test to see what type of
parent you were and how well you did.
How your kids turned out. That’s
the final test. So here’s a breakdown of
where I learned my parenting style that I’d like to have and the results of
said children.
What type of parent do I want to be? I want to be a mix of my Aunt Mary, Uncle Max
and Tom’s dad.
Aunt Mary and her daughter, my cousin, Sam have an amazing relationship. Sam is in her 20’s now and they are very
close. Sam was always a driven youngster. She was popular, made friends easy, was in
lots of school activities and still help a part time job. She stayed out of trouble for the most part. The most important thing here is that I want
the relationship that they have. For a
single mom Aunt Mary couldn’t have done better.
Uncle Max was a disciplinary. He didn’t know how to talk to us or hang out
with us. He was not our friend. But I want
to be able to discipline my children.
Not quite as harshly as he did, but I want to be able to create the fear
that he did. You were good because he scared
you into it. His test? My cousin Missy is great young lady. She stayed out of trouble, is married with an education
and has her own home. I’m so proud of
her, and I had no hand in it.
Last is Tom’s dad. He
was also a single parent, the only single father with full custody that I’ve
ever known. He and Tom have a great
relationship. They talk on the phone all
of the time. Tom turned out great. He did a great job. Tom has an education, goals, is married and
has a great daughter (after all she’s mine too). I May be biased in this one.
I could only dream of being half the parent Aunt Mary and
Tom’s dad are. Then mix a little Uncle
Max in there and I’m good. But, you
never know. I may not be that kind of
parent. A parent should base their style
off of their child. In fact you may need
to handle your kids differently, because no kids are alike.
What type of parent do you want to be? Where do think you go that from?
Just for fun I took some parenting Quiz’s
Here’s the first one from
about.com.
It’s really for baby stuff.
Here’s what I got:
You answered 8 items out of 10 Yes.
Your score is 80%. Your parenting style is most closely aligned
with attachment parenting philosophies.
My response – Attached parenting?
Wow am I surprised, lol. I
actually never considered myself an attached parent.
Here’s the other one I took, it’s from parenting.com. This one a lot more in depth and you can take
it for your partner too. Sadly it’s one
of those sites you have to register for to get your results, but I liked this
one a lot. I’ll just go in later and
take myself off their mailing list. My results:
Involved but Flexible -
While you believe it's important to set expectations for your children, you're
not too rigid about it. You recognize that sometimes they may deviate from your
considered instruction to follow their own path, and that's okay. When it comes
to modeling behavior for your children, you take it very seriously, but you also
recognize and appreciate outside influences that may shape their behavior;
they'll learn from situations and people they encounter in the world - the
inspiring scout leader, the beloved Sunday School teacher, even the flaky
neighbor or annoying kid up the street. Overall, you want your kids to learn
the best lessons they can, whether those come straight from you and your
spouse, or another source.
My Response - Neat. That just described the exact kind of parent I want to be!
