Tagged with " kids"
Feb 25, 2011 - Culture, Food, Life, Parenting    3 Comments

My Many Faces of Parenting and a Parenting Compass

As Georgia progressively interacts with more and more with people outside of our home and our immediate circle of friends, I have become more aware of how many different ‘parenting faces’ I have and which I call upon depending on the situations.

It often feels as if we have an embedded inner compass of actions, reactions and culture that unfortunately, unlike a true magnetic compass that points due North; this inner compass often flip-flops between East or West (cultural influences) and all points in between.

Parenting Compass

I have often attributed a large part of this, to the fact that we are parenting and raising a child in a culture and environment so completely different from the one we were raised in (being immigrants).

Beyond cultural influences, however, it has also occurred to me that technology, the changes of societal demands and simply how things have changed over a generation is reason enough to continuously reflect on and question the decisions we now make, or have to make, as parents.

The oft-heard cry of ‘Back in my day…’ is universal; we have added recently though a ‘We do not do that…’ to our arsenal of reasons or excuses, often, rightly or wrongly (any thoughts would be welcome here!) with a cultural implication.

An example is saying ‘Yuck!’ to food. Read more »

Happy happy happy!

The wisdom of our children forever astounds.

A couple of days ago, after a fairly traumatic day which involved my often shouting – No! No! No! to Georgia, we had a very enlightening conversation. I’m sure all Parenting Experts will at this point say ‘She’s challenging her boundaries’.

I asked her, “Do you like Mummy being angry?”

Her immediate vehement response, “No!” and then she goes on to say…

“I like mummy to be happy happy happy, and daddy and Georgie to be happy happy happy!”

Now, please tell me, how do I help her maintain this as a life-long policy?

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