What is the purpose of parenting? This is the question we started out our discussion with. It was hard for me to come up with an answer for this one, so I would like to turn it over to my readers to tell me what they think the purpose of parenting is. Who benefits the most from parenting? This is also another question I would like to ask anyone who reads this post. So comment below and let me know what you think.
This post may be a little scatterbrained so bare with me, but I would just like to share some of the main discussion points we talked about that I found the most important.
It is more important to focus on character than the behavior. I thought this was huge for so many parents, in my observations of many parents I have noticed how easy it is for a parent to try to control every behavior of the child. But the truth is if you are focusing more on the character that your child is developing than the behavior shouldn't really be that bad. If you know your child is developing a good character than their behaviors should reflect that.
Another important piece of information I found interesting was to not without love, contact & affection. These are huge things for a child growing up. A child needs to feel that they belong and are needed to the family system. It is never okay for a parent to without love from a child because they are doing something wrong. Some people may not agree with this but it really can be so detrimental to a child if affection and contact is withheld from them.
The last thing I would like to talk about is a quote, in class we focused a lot about ways to raise teenagers. (This just gives me anxiety thinking about this huge tasks) Our teacher read us this quote by a researcher named Popins, "By the time our kids are teenagers the only real tool we have to influence them is our relationship." This really hit home for me. I wish I could say AMEN a million times. Like I mentioned earlier when I was a teenager it wasn't the easiest child. I remember fighting with my parents a lot because we didn't see eye to eye on a lot of the choices I was making. I remember my dad sitting me down as he had many times before but this time instead of trying to lecture me about what I was doing and why he thought it was wrong he decided to listen to me, he asked me questions about what was going through my mind. This was a huge turning point in my life. I finally felt as though they cared about what. At the end of the conversation he just nicely said that if I continued making these choices it was going to tear apart my family and lead me down a path I didn't want to be on. He reminded me how much I was hurting my mother & him and how badly our relationships had already been damaged/nearly destroyed. This was probably the only thing that could have gotten through to me at this point. I immediately realized that my silly rebellious behavior was not worth my relationships with my parents and their trust.
I will never forget how important those relationships are because I almost jeopardized everything I worked so hard for. A parent and child relationship takes a lot of work. Parenting itself I am sure takes a lot more work than I can even image. Although I have not been on the parent end of those relationships yet I can say as a child it is so worth it. Keep the big picture in mind, focus on the child's character, express your love for them often, make sure they know you believe in them. We have heaven rooting us on & with some divine help from above I really believe parenting can be successfully accomplished.
Thanks for reading. Have a great day!!
