Sometimes, people find it too easy to pass judgment on a parent they see out in public. Or give parenting advice when it was clearly not requested.
Recently, we were at the mall, walking with friends, and I stopped at a kiosk, to ask about replacing a broken phone under warranty. The gentleman began to help me, and another customer walked up and started to talk over me. The other customer was politely asked to wait, while he finished assisting the customer before him. I was speaking with the clerk, and my son began to get loud, just being silly, and demanding attention, as he grew restless in the stroller. I gently put my hand over his lips and shushed him, but honestly, it was not a punishable behavior. The other customer clearly felt it his duty, in his impatience with waiting, to express LOUDLY, how he felt I should parent my child.
"F***ing smack him and tell him to shut up!". His wife tugged at his arm and couldn't hide her embarrassment as she tried to quiet him. I instantly spun around and looked him in the eye and said "Excuse me? Is that how you raised YOUR kids?" He said nothing more, and I walked away, amazed that I kept my cool, but thinking that I needed to set the correct example for my children, and not engage in a verbal battle with a narrow-minded man.
This encounter has not been far from my mind since its occurrence, and even as I rocked my SugarPlum to sleep tonight, I thought about the subject of discipline, and what's appropriate.
I grew up in an abusive situation, which is not what I want for my own children. I do not want to be the parent that uses fear to raise their child, rather than love. I love my Dad very much, but throughout most of my childhood, I was deathly afraid of him. I was even more afraid of his wife, and rightly so, as she was one source of the largest part of physical and emotional pain I experienced as a child.
It's been said that abuse is a cycle, and that you will abuse if you were abused. I don't believe this is true. After all of my own childhood experiences, I could never imagine doing those things to a child...EVER.
Just having to smack my child's hand as they reach for something that is HOT or SHARP puts me in tears. I'm not saying I've never swatted my child's bum, either, but a swat is a far cry from a BEATING. Each time I have had to swat my child, for whatever reason (usually endangering themselves or another), I am assaulted by visions of myself as a small child, enduring beating after beating, for petty reasons, and I am paralyzed by fear. I am so scared of becoming "that" parent.
I am so scared of that possibility that I have taken measures to LEARN to be a better parent, and have been trying out various forms of discipline, in a quest for EFFECTIVE discipline for my child. I say for my child, singularly, because each of my children are parented in a slightly different fashion. Not all children require the same form of parenting and/or discipline. My son requires a distinctively different method of parenting than does my daughter. Until I find the combination of techniques that work for us, I will continue to experiment with different techniques. Everyone has a different method, and having the internet at the tip of my fingers, along with the advices and experiences of countless other parents, as well as research and book recommendations, I am able to choose and test methods that I am comfortable with.
I like to think I parent with love, rather than fear, but I do know there is a certain amount of fear that is automatically in the equation...a child's fear of disappointing their parents. Because we are the people they look up to and admire the most at this tender age, and they are not looking to disappoint us, but rather to make us happy, and feel the warmth of our love. To parent with fear is to rob them of that admiration and innocent trust, and in turn, it robs the parent of that child's unconditional love...something some of us spend a great deal of time searching for in life. Something never to be taken for granted. I do not want my children to grow up thinking it's okay to walk all over me, like a doormat, but I also do not want them to grow up cowering in my presence because they are afraid I may reach out and smack them every time they walk past me. There has to be a happy medium, and I am making it my quest to FIND that happy medium.
All of this being said, I'd love to hear YOUR methods of parenting...yes, YOU, my readers! How do YOU parent? What methods have you found to be most successful with your child or children? Did you modify your methods of parenting to better fit each child's personality? Please share!
Over the years of my life, I have lost a lot of things money, memories, material things. These things were often things that were taken from me. Stolen from me. But some were left behind, as I moved on in my life, and was not in the position to take them with me. Some of these things have never crossed my mind again, but others, I still feel the sadness of losing. Since finally settling into a home of my own, not quite 10 years ago, I've begun to aquire new belongings. Not all out of necessity, though. Some of those belongings were simply impulse purchases, because I was finally in the position to buy them, and they struck my fancy at THAT VERY MOMENT. Collecting has been the easy part, as I am sure many already know, from their own experiences. Letting go, however, has not been so easy. 
