parenting

I did not read many parenting books during my parenting-career so far.

I feel that sometimes it is like with pregnancy books- the more you read the more you get confused and scared and stressed. That's why- especially during the pregnancies and in the first years- I trusted on my own instinct, the knowledge I had and common sense.

But sometimes you get to points where you just don't know what to do anymore…

There were suddenly days where I started to feel fed up with my kids. Their nagging and fighting (mostly amongst each other), the "not-listening-to-me" and "ignoring-me" when I wanted to say something that they did not want to hear.

Do you know this feeling?

There were moments where we just keep shouting at each other. I try to stay calm but sometimes it just gets too much and then I start to shout back and afterwards I feel so disappointed with myself and of course shouting is not helping- it just makes everyone feel miserable.

There are moments where I use stupid threats- like "if you won't do x and y you won't get z" … and even if I go through with the "punishment", it is usually not a satisfying solution.

I ordered a book on the internet a while ago: 

"How to Talk So Kids Will Listen &Listen So Kids Will Talk" written by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish some 35 years ago.

As I read it and tried to apply some of the things in my every-day-life and tried to improve other things, I came to think about just how much our parenting is influenced by the way our parents behaved towards us.

Don't get me wrong- I do have caring parents. My mother is still my role model when it comes to mothering. She had a seemingly never ending patience with us kids and always listened to us. But still- some of the behavior patterns I have and would like to change come from generations before me- not only my parents. And I am sure that they all meant well.

It's just that some of the ways to treat kids are not really productive, supportive, successful- even if we might initially think they are.

I hope that I will succeed more and more to implement a good, supportive, caring, emphatic way of parenting our kids. It's hard work some days and on others everything works just fine but I guess it will be a process that will never end.

Another interesting book I read some years ago is "Brain Rules" by John Medina. His conclusions are mainly the same as in the above book- if I remember everything well.