Parenting - your strength, your 'needs improvement'

I think my strength is my ability to cook healthy food, to instill this love of food in my kid and sharing my love of reading books.

My needs improvement is my anger/temper. Ever since I had a baby, I get ticked off by small things, every day is a challenge to keep it cool. When my kid cries/ whines, even a little, my blood pressure rises and I need to chill.

Minkis,

 

I 've a too small kid
I jus play with him n make him laugh, smile n giggle.
I show him pictures to stimulate his vision
Negative is I m too much into the net n hazard ing with radiation
N sometimes I just let him play himself!

 

Parenting is a continuous process thats upto when you see your grandchildren and more. There can never be a full stop. Infact even after we die the memories that stay behind guides the progenies.
1. My strength is : supporting them at times of dismay.
2. My weakness is : love for them.

 

My strength are my cute kids and my supporting husband.
My weakness is I cannot control my anger if anything is wrong.
I want to control that.

San

 

Dear Rihana,

I don't know how I missed this wonderful thread where the mothers have shared their challenges and strengths. My wife responds every time my son asks me a question, "Why can't you understand me better?", she always replied, "Because, you didn't come with a manual". When I read that in your post, it attracted my attention.

The biggest issue we faced is two different style of parenting. My wife was raised in a joint-family with bonding with uncles, aunts, cousins, chanting, homams, poojas, guests, etc. I was raised in a secular family with my father speaking very little about values but demonstrated by living it while my mother spoke a lot about values but demonstrated very little.

I was out of my nest at the age of 15 to join Pre-University and lived in the hostel for 4 years until I finished undergrad and later I stayed in my uncle's house in Chennai with a joint-family. I have automatically believed the children learn much by exposing them to the world early enough and from the age of 13-14, we have to train them to make informed decision by questioning them about the right choice so that they turn out to be decision-makers at the age of 18. Most importantly, they need to be trained to own responsibility for their decisions. My wife was raised in an environment where most decisions were taken by her parents and grandparents and she tried that method with my son until he was 18. My son was very independent and grabbed the first available opportunity to live alone and learn himself. He built his values by learning so much out of the internet, reading books and discussing it with the parents and others.

Parenting challenges are multi fold for parents of children who have special needs or adopted. They have to address questions such as "Has she been like this from birth or it happened because of some health issues later?" to "Does she resemble her dad or mom?" In addition to regular parenting, they also need to think about the special challenges that they might encounter.

Yesterday I had a call with parents of 21 year old son who is living alone and doing exciting things that he liked. The parents claimed, "He didn't finish his undergrad telling that most successful billionaires didn't". From their perspective, the two older daughters did very well academically and hold high positions in their respective profession. This son was born 12 years later after the last one and most pampered. They are still trying to find out what went wrong in parenting and try to fix it when he is 21. Their request is for me to mentor him at least for a month and they don't mind move him to the city I live so that he could interact with me regularly.

I have a strange feeling that no one listened to him and his ambitions and therefore, I requested one on one phone call with him to study more about his thoughts. I believe listening to the children's thoughts and words are very important trait in parenting.

Viswa

 

Thats so true. Many a times we working mothers are so involved in doing the routine job and home basic chores and the race to earn and save is killing that basic health care of children is ignored a lot of times.

 

i can easyly close to every one this is the my strength and weakness.And also i cant control my cries even small thing is happen.....how to control the cries?
if i done any mistake in my english pls forgive me and correct me.

 

I wanted to post in this thread since morning but my mind kept going blank when thinking of my strengths. Lol, but I have many that needs improvement so here they go

1. I can't sit and help my children with their homeworks. My patience is very short, I used to pinch my eldest and my second sons. The boys have smartened up, they work independently and will come to me to double check. I still explode when they show me messy works, I don't pinch anymore. I've been thinking of @poovai, I remembered her old post where she mention that she would sit with her son to help him 'til high school... I really want to be able to do this...

2. I'm so overwhelmed sometimes that I end up making threats, example- "If you guys don't focus in school properly, I will turn off the internet and you guys have to listen to my mouth all day long for the next few days"... etc

3. 12 years of being a mom and I'm still a bad cook... I order everything outside if I have guests.. my children thinks I cook the best and most likely because I make their favourites, ex. for snack yesterdsy, sushi for my daughter, chili dog for my second one, Mac/cheese for my eldest...

Outside, my old neighbors say I'm such a good mom. They say my children are good-looking and tall and that they always see me either with my children in the morning, with groceries during school hours, and children again in the evening when I need to drive them for their cricket/taekwondo/dance activities.

Husband said I'm best in spending money- vitamins, therapies, extracurricular activities. He knows I'm bad in doing house chores, in fact I cry doing them, and I get extremely stress out cooking.

I have to push myself everyday and the future of my children is my only motivation. I really feel exhausted and ready to give up sometimes.

 

@momsky,

Some or other qualities do match.
I too get too stressed doing the kids work, managing home and office.
Still even I am exhausted I will cook what ever kids demands . Its because I love cooking.

Please don't feel bad - just don't look at cooking as burden just love doing it. You will really enjoy and kids too.

I have to push myself everyday and the future of my children is my only motivation. I really feel exhausted and ready to give up sometimes.

I too get frustrated arranging house as my younger on is 2 1/2 years only. Elder one even eight leaves books toys here and there. He will frequently get scoldings for that.

But we can't give up.

Santoshi

 

Thanks @MehulAtharvMom.. I don't really find cooking as a burden, it's just that I failed so many times at it.. I fancy making a table full of my creations but I find it impossible, 1 dish alone takes me more than an hour or two to do.

I'm just exhausted because of the repetitive workload week after week with no break at all. Even when I'm sick, my husband asks me to make his coffee because 'it just taste better'.