Every Child Should Have a Grandparent

Have you ever noticed that often parents who did not know how to be good parents change when they become Grandparents? Mark Gungor contributed to Susanne M. Alexander’s book, “All-in-One Marriage Prep” which is a collection of tips and wisdom by 75 relationship experts. His contribution advocates marrying young.

He warns, “There is an additional threat when people wait so long for marriage and children: the elimination of the role of grandparents. These people who love their grandcildren unconditionally and whose age, wisdom, and financial resources play a key role–in some cases, the key role–as stabilizers in those children’s lives.

Our friends’ grandchildren were graduating high school about the time we had our first grandchild.These people would look at me sympathetically and say, “You don’t know what you are missing.” I would say, “You don’t miss what you don’t have.”

We now have two wonderful granddaughters and I do know what I was missing.

CELEBRATE GRANDPARENTS’ DAY–SEPTEMBER 13th

Parenting Experts

In listening to the other fourteen parenting experts on the Parenting Summit during the past three weeks, what struck me was the powerful advice given by the experts who are mothers themselves. All of them described the impact of the birth of that first child.

The surprising feeling of helplessness, loneliness, crushing responsibility, complete entrapment and the guilt for feeling those feelings just added to the hopelessness, because we tried to hide the fear.

Every mother who shared on the program wanted children and loved the baby but somehow the complexity and power of the conflicting feelings came as a shock.  The birth of the baby changed our lives forever.

Women handle this huge change in different ways. The women in the Summit were women open to learning. Most of them had jobs teaching, counseling, writing or in some way significantly connected to parenting or with children. Some of the experts shared clinical information. I am sure that was helpful to some listeners. Some were young and some were old like me.

More and more the clinical information makes me smile because reading books like most of us did before becoming parents didn’t prevent the panic. Help! How do I do this and what if I make a mistake! An awesome responsibility.

Parenting Coach, Elisabeth Stitt, has put together a free online event called “Purposeful Parenting: Expert Advice on Creating Your Own Family Plan.” She has invited me to participate as an expert speaker along with 14 other professionals in specialties like nutrition, financial literacy, emotional resiliency, talking to your kids and how to stay grounded as a parent. I am thrilled to be a part of it.

To get free access go to http://www.elisabethstitt.com/purposeful-parenting-summit  Once you register, starting July 6, 2015 there will be a new audio interview released every day. Audio recordings can be accessed by phone, computer, in your car, ipad or even during your workout.

My 30 minute interview, “Becoming Soul Mates and Great Parents, Too” will be released all day Wed. July 8th. To see other topics and speakers go to http://www.elisabethstitt.com/new-page-1/

A great opportunity for friends or family who are parents. Lots of expert answers to parenting questions and so easy to access. Best of all they are free. Let them know.

Basic Needs for Everyone

All human beings, old and young, have three basic needs:

• They need to feel loveable
• They need to feel competent
• They need to have a sense of belonging

Fathers, how does your parenting help your children meet those needs? In order to help your children meet their needs, you must first examine yourself. Do you feel loveable, competent, and a sense of belonging? You will have a hard time giving what you don’t have.

Children learn from how you treat yourself and those around you. Do you treat your children as unique separate persons? Do you spend time with them finding out who they are:? Focused attention, trust, acceptance without judgment help them develop self esteem.

Do you encourage your children to own feelings and perceptions by listening to them with understanding? Do they feel loved and respected? If so, they will probably love and respect you.

Are you teaching them to manage themselves, their belongings, time, and money in age appropriate ways? If you manage yourself, your belongings, your time and money well, you will be able to teach them. They will learn because they see how it is done as well as by what you teach.

The last thing to ask yourself: How do you treat their mother? There is a saying, “The best thing a father can do for his children is to love and respect their mother.

One Size Does Not Fit All When Raising Children

Dr. George H. Reavis, Assistant Superintendent, Cincinnati Public Schools, 1939-1948 reminds us of this fable.

Once upon a time the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of “a new world.” So they organized a school.

They adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming, and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculun all the animals took all the subjects.

The duck was excellent in swimming, in fact better than his instructor; but he made only passing grades in flying and was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to stay after school and also drop swimming in order to practice running. This was kept up until his web feet were badly worn and he was only average in swimming. But average was acceptable in school so nobody worried about that except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of the class in running, but had a nervous breakdown because of so much make-up work in swimming.

The squirrel was excellent in climbing until he developed frustration in the flying class where his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of from the tree top down. He also developed a “charlie horse” from over-exertion and then got C in climbing and D in running.

The eagle was a problem child and was disciplined severely. In the climbing class he beat all the others to the top of the tree, but insisted on using his own way to get there.

At the end of the year, an abnormal eel that could swim exceedingly well, and also run, climb, and fly a little, had the highest average and was valedictorian.

Remember. If you have more than one child, they will all be different from each other. Know what their differences are and how to help them develop their own strengths.