Parenting Free Essays

string(19) " be a good parent\." Years ago little girls played jump rope to a song that went like this: First comes love, then comes marriage then comes Araceli with a baby carriage. The name of the little girl jumping rope was named in the final line of the rhyme , so it was understood that after love and marriage comes the consequence of love and marriage †¦. a baby. We will write a custom essay sample on Parenting or any similar topic only for you Order Now The anticipation of giving birth is overwhelming. The nine months of waiting, planning and dreaming become a reality the day the baby is born. As if the morning sickness associated with the pregnancy in the first trimester wasn’t painful enough, the actual delivering is pain you never imagined you put in endure. My personal experience with my first pregnancy was different from the last three. I was 18years old and didn’t realize I was pregnant until I miss my second period. I was actually losing weight not gaining and I didn’t feel no morning sickness I was criticized other women who complaint during the pregnancy I thought to myself that they were exaggerated because my experience was totally different than theirs. I was in labor for 24 hours and I thought that it never end. I transition from wife to mother in 24 hours and I become a parent. My parenting skills were basically non existence I learned by trial and error. I did my best using come and sense and natural instincts in the everyday care of my baby. I learned that my experiences in parenting my son were unique to me and never felt negative in wherever doing. I may have had doubts but I never had negative thought what I was doing for how I was doing it. After five shorts months I found myself pregnant again. My husband did not participate in parenting our first born and preparing for our second child my second pregnancy was different from the first in the I felt and experienced the normal discomforts that a woman experiences during my first trimester now I have two babies and again my husband left the nurturing and parenting to me. I enjoyed taking care of my sons and although a lot of work I cherish those memories. Every day I found myself learning new things about myself and about my children. I remember thinking that I was being a very good parent to my sons and I was doing everything possible to make their little lives comfortable and secure. I remember baby them together and watching them splashing water and enjoying their time in the water there is no grater feeling than knowing that your children are healthy and happy and that I am a part of the reason about the way they feel. I remember their first tooth and the first time they tried to walk on their own. I remember the little smiles as they turned to me as if to say look mom â€Å"I’ m doing it†. During this time my husband was not participating in the nurturing and parenting of our sons he felt his job was just to provide for his family he would come home, eat his dinner and go ut with his friends many time my children were crying as he walked out the door this anger and hurt me because there were his children too. I remember comforting and consoling them by telling them that daddy will be right back. how could he ignore his sons cries for attention is beyond me. Beeing a parent means that you are un call twenty four/ seven. There are no days off and the days are long and sometimes the nights are long also. I remember beeing up all nights with my children when they had fevers, measles, chicken pox and other childhood diseases this is all part of being a parent and I tried to do my best when parenting my sons my conflicts with my husband were mainly because I would ask him be more involved with parenting our sons. His answer was always the same he would say that it was my job to take care of the house and the children. His role was to provide a roof over our heads and put food on the table. I would stress that his sons needed his affection and his physical presence in their lives but he refused. This let me feeling frustrated and angry that he could be selfish with his time and his love for our sons. When my young son was six years old I become pregnant for the third time. I gave birth to our third son. Four years after my third son was born my last son was born I gave birth to four sons. By the time my fourth son was born I felt I knew what I was doing. My parenting skills had been honed and I felt ready to be a mom again. I had four children under the age of ten. My older children became my helpers. I made it a game when they helped me with their little brother. I can still hear the laughter as a played with the baby brother while I preparing dinner and did other necessary chores. during all this time I felt alone because my mother was in Mexico. I could not just pick up the phone and call her to ask her advice. I learned to appreciate my mother and would tell her so in the letters I wrote to her she would answer my letters and offer advice and tips about how to be a good mom the first rule she said was to be patience, the second thing she taught me was to treat my sons as individuals and respect their differences in contrast my other in law who lived across street from us never lifted a finger to help me or to even give advice about how to be a good parent. You read "Parenting" in category "Papers" When it came to disciplining my children I tried to fit the punishment to the deed. Unfortunately more often than not my anger toward their father would be expressed in the punishments. Years later I apologized to my sons for having been unfair . I regret to say that I did use corporal punishment sometimes when disciplining my children. It is not a memory that I embrace and hope that my children forgive me for ever using physical force to discipline them . Each child has his own recollection of how they were discipline and laugh about the memory never the less it is painful to remember that I could have ever hurt my children that way . My oldest son would cry at the mire mention of punishment where as his younger brother would be defiant. My third son rarely got into trouble and the last one was the most incorrigible. I instilled in my sons they belief that boys and girls can be friends. For example if they were played baseball they were encourage to incorporate girls into the game . They were taught to respect girls of all ages and that they were equals. They understood that although boys are stronger physical girls also have the strength. Unfortunately my children were exposed to domestic violence from a very young age because my husband, their father, was both physically and verbally abused me. As adults my sons asked me why I stayed with him and I told them that their father took myself stem and I had nowhere to go and certainly wasn’t going to abandoned them I didn’t stay to protected them I stayed because I didn’t know I had options. Looking back on those days , I would have put my foot down the very first time he raised his voice to me. I would have the police and would have him arrested. I also didn’t want my sons to be raise without a father but he was never there anyway. During my sons’ upbringing, I instilled in them the cultural benefits of our nationality. They were American citizen but had a very rich Mexican heritage to be proud of too. When they started school they spoke only Spanish at home because that that’s what was spoken at home. They learned English in school and for a while I felt that they were embarrassed because I spoke only Spanish. I made a conscious choice to try to learn English after I heard my son having a conversation with a friend of his he told his friend not to worried because his mother didn’t speak English that motivated me to learn the language. You can say I matured with my children. Eventually I learned to speak English and did what I could to help them with their homework. The more they learned the more I learned. My sons’ could know it back then but they taught me That I still had much to learn as for as scholastics was concerned. This became an evolution for me. I didn’t realize it then but learning English helped me bound more with my children now I can communicate with them in English and Spanish I knew that they felt proud of me and I felt proud of myself. They saw that I was doing something that was going to benefit me personally . As parents we make goals for our children. First and foremost is their safety at all times. Stronger danger and other safety rules a must and something I hope they’re teaching their own children. Respect for others is also something I taught my children from a very young age. Generations before theirs, children were taught to be seen but not hurt . I taught my children to express their opinions with intelligence with a positive vocabulary and to respect other people differences and opinions. Also I taught them that reunions on a monthly basis were necessary to hear from each other’s opinions and concerns,. This enabled me to be informed as to their activities in and out of school I stress to them that we need it to communicate on a daily basis about their school and social activities this helped me as a knew where they were at all times. Each of my children had their own responsibilities at home since a very early age. I taught them to make their bad after they got up in the morning and to organize everything they had out of their place. I was following the same path my mom did with my brothers. She was a single mother it was a lot to do for herself so she was dividing the chores at home since they were five males and two females. She could never count on my dad to support her in anything. My mom didn’t want us to be dependent on her because she wasn’t going to be around forever. The same principle was applied to my sons. I told them they needed to learn how to cook and clean up after themselves. My sons also learn how to do their own laundry and how to iron if necessary I started giving them chores when they were eight years old they would throw up the garbage dry dishes and helped me put groceries away. These were but a few of the chores they were responsible for I believed they learn how to be self sufficient and independent . My first husband was one hundred machista which means he felt that women should be treated as an object and a women had the esponsibility of being a servant and not to be respected. He would completely disagree with what I was doing with my children by teaching them rules and responsibilities. I thank my lucky starts every day that not one of my sons inherited that negative traits from him. I told my sons that the girls of their generation were not going to respect or tolerate a man disrespecting and demeaning them so they had better think twice before trying anything like that with their girlfriends lesson learned. My sons were not perfect growing up and sibling rivalry was an issue. I dealt with one more than one occasion. It was mostly the older ones picking on the younger ones and it did get physical sometimes, but I somehow managed to bring peace and order to the situation. Mostly the fights were about who wanted to watch what on T. V. so. I would arbitrate and be the majority rule. They were not allowed to watch T. V. until after they finished their homework no exception. How to cite Parenting, Papers Parenting Free Essays Without a doubt parents play an important role at every stage of their child/children’s development and this is true of the teenage years. Spring, Rosen Matheson (2002) have observed that the transition to adolescence brings along with it tremendous challenges for both the parent and the adolescent (p. 411) and it is therefore essential that parents adopt strategies that would ensure that this period is not laced with the levels of stress and anxiety that is characteristic of families with maladjusted teenagers. We will write a custom essay sample on Parenting or any similar topic only for you Order Now It is evident therefore that proper parenting techniques are critical during the adolescent stage if parents are to ensure that their children develop into well-adjusted adolescents. During the teenage years adolescents and parents are faced with a number of conflicting issues. The physical pubertal changes, peer pressure and the concerns of sex and sexuality are brought into focus at this stage. Spring, Rosen Matheson (2002) also indicate that during this period there is a reshaping of â€Å"family expectations and interactions† and there is the demand for increasing autonomy from adolescents (p. 412). Additionally there are more modern areas of concern that are bothersome including the threat of HIV/AIDS, the influence of the mass media through music and entertainment and the capabilities of the Internet are challenging areas of concern for parents. At this stage there is the fear that these influences would supersede the influence of the parent and lead to severe negative results. Parental style, according to research, is one of the most significant predictors of problems during the adolescent years. The nature of the family relationship and the facility with which the adolescent period is handled is said to be dependent on the technique and strategies that parents adopt in dealing with their adolescents (Jarvis, 2005). Jarvis (2005) indicates that the teenage years have less negative effects on families in which there is a close relationship between the parent and the teenager and where this relationship is non-conflictual (p. 210). Jarvis (2005) has found that the most appropriate learning style to be adopted during the teenage years is an authoritative one. An authoritative parent is firm and consistent in laying down guidelines, procedures, limitations, responsibilities and consequences for their children. These parents are also supportive and permit their children ‘psychological autonomy’, according to Jarvis (2005) which allows adolescents some amount of freedom in decision-making and developing their own opinion and beliefs. Adolescents with parents who are supportive have been shown to have higher self-esteem and therefore avoid certain risky behaviors (Parker Benson, 2004, p. 519). On the other hand parents who are too firm and authoritarian are usually shown to impact negative on their adolescents and this strictness usually has a poor effect on adolescent academic performance. Other styles of parenting have been shown to be of negative effect on adolescent adjustment. Parker and Benson (2004) argue that a lack of parental support may lead to behavioral problems in adolescents including substance abuse (p. 519). These authors suggest that the parental closeness that was present before the teenage years, though much narrower, needs to still be present or adolescents will face problems of adjustment (p. 520). Jarvis (2005) adds that parents who attempt to exert psychological control over their adolescents are rarely effective. This type of control generally reveals itself in ‘coerciveness, passive-aggression and intrusiveness’ (p. 211). This level of parental control eventually leads to further adjustment problems such as anxiety and depression which are detriment at this stage. It is therefore evident that parents need to carefully examine how they relate to their teenagers during these crucial developmental years. Proper authoritative techniques should be employed in dealing with adolescents to ensure that the potential negative influences that adolescents are faced with are avoided. References Jarvis, C. (2005). Parenting problems: research and clinical perspectives on parenting adolescents. Journal of Child Psychotherapy, 31(2), 209 – 220. Parker, J. S. Benson, M. J. (2004, Fall). Parent-adolescent relations and adolescent functioning: Self-esteem, substance abuse, and delinquency. Adolescence, 39(155), 519-530. Smetana, J., Crean, H. F. Campione-Barr, N. (2005, Summer). Adolescents’ and parents’ changing conceptions of parental authority. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 108, 31- 46. Spring, B., Rosen, K. H., Matheson, J. L. (2002, Dec). how parents experience a transition to  adolescence: A qualitative study. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 11(4), 411–425. How to cite Parenting, Essay examples