Education on parenting

Since the new year, Gwen's ECFE class has decided to do a book discussion group during our parent time. It works nice for me since Gwen is my second, and I don't seem to have as many questions as I did with Trevor. The book we are reading is called The 10 Basic Principles of Good Parenting. It works really well with the structure of the class. Each week for 10 weeks we cover a chapter. The chapters are maybe 15-20 pages but can be read in about 15-20 minutes. Even if we don't have time to read, our teacher has a cheat sheet going over the main points of the chapter. But this cheat sheet is really nice to give to our husbands, so we can continue to have the discussion with them after class. The book isn't really a new method or new ideas, and that is what it isn't meant to do. It is more to keep important things top of mind.

I feel like since reading this book, it has really clued me in to being a better parent, and curious about the whole science behind parenting. Not so much that I want to change careers or anything, just that I'm much more curious about other people's ideas of parenting and how their parents shaped what they did. I can still remember what it was like to be parented, and what's kind of cool is that since I was the oldest, I also saw my parents parent younger kids and can remember that better than when I was that younger age.

But what I don't have a lot of clue about is how my parents were parented. I know I asked or know a lot about their lives as younger people, but I was never interested in how they were parented. Probably because at the time I wasn't interested, or didn't know much about it anyway. So one of these days, I'm going to have to have a little sit-down with my parents to see what it was like to be a kid having the parents that they did.

For a little taste of the book, a warm fuzzy for me was to read the chapter about how "you cannot spoil your child with love." It makes the distinction that you CAN spoil your child with THINGS, but often these things are used as a replacement for love. Thankfully, I don't believe that we do this as the things that our kids do get are either gifts for a celebration, or something that they have earned as a reward. The chapter is really about how, many years ago there were people that felt like withholding love and affection towards their children helped promote a strong individual. Sort of like the thinking that a boy that shows emotion is a wimp. It is also interesting to note that showing love can take different forms. And in our family it sure does. I like to spend time cuddling, hugging, patting, and in general being close to the kids. Russ (and many others) loves to wrestle and tackle and tickle both of the kids. Neither one is better than the other. It is how we show our love to the kids. And that is why the kids love to get around other family and wrestle and tackle and tickle everyone else. If anyone is willing to play with them in that way, they love, love, love it. It is so interesting to think that later on in life, how this will impact them. We are such a lucky family to have everyone so close.

More on other events later....