Parenting? Start with yourself.

I am inspired to write on this after going thru much experience myself when raising my own child. I had also read quite a numbers of parenting related books and have my fair share of debating, sharing, agreeing and dispute with my wife on this matter. We don't always agree with one another but we're husband and wife and we work things out together as a family. That's how we grow and developed kinship even deeper.

Today I want to talk about parenting in a different point of view, perhaps in a different point of view within my own perspective. You see, in the pasted, I used to have the concept that parenting is something I need to do to raise an obedient child. A child with good behavior and habits, a child that do not create havoc and having tantrum whenever she did not get what she wants. And to do that, we read on parenting books, have discussion and implement ideas that we read in the hope that our daughter will benefit on it, the idea of parenting I used to have is to correct her, change her and maybe scold her if necessary.

And like most parent, if things do not turn out the way we want her to be, like when she's having constant tantrum, moving around too actively when we ask not to, crying and screaming when she is denied of something > we'll lose our cool and perhaps rise our voice on some occasions. Well, that's exactly what I am going to emphasize today on losing our cool and getting emotionally frustrated and anguish.

If you read carefully the title on this topic today, I wrote "Parenting? Starts with yourself." Recently my wife had lost a bit of her cool when Gracia did not want to cooperate with her, in the end, she got her buttock smacked from mummy. For your record, Lina is usually, in fact most of the time very loving, extremely caring and careful on how to bring up and raise our daughter. She read more than me, do a lot of researched and surfed the web widely for anything relating to parenting. From baby diet to nurturing behavior etc, all in all, she's one of the most committed and sacrificial mum I ever know of. But there's a problem lies within, the problem on focusing too much on Gracia but not herself. Like most parents, when Lina get all the knowledge and information she need to know on parenting, whether it's from books, internet or from friends. She'll try to implement on it. When the result turns out to be what she expected, everyone will be happy, including me. Unfortunately, esp on parenting, we all know it's easier said than done. And if things don’t turn out the way it should be, perhaps even much worst than your expectation and your child had really pushed your limits. You lose your cool, start to raised your voice, and to a certain degreed, you might even lay your fingers or hand on your misbehavior’s child. I say, that is disastrous.

I told my wife, you'd already given so much to your child. You'd come so far, influenced her from young, taught her good habits, always sharing with her what is the right thing to do and what's not. Hoping that she'll managed her emotion properly when she do not get what she wants... but in the end, if for the same reason, that you did not get the things that you want, you snapped. That’s the worst thing you want to do. All your effort might flow to the drain I say. One adage saying is, "Action speaks louder than words". If you do not practice what you preach, then you're not setting good example for your baby to follow. When she sees that you'll get angry when things doesn't go your way, or you'll raised your voice to get things done, even worst is to know that you'll used physical exploitation as your last resort to show your intensity of dissatisfaction > what positive parenting do you want to imply to your child. No amount of books, researched and information you gather will be of used if you do not start controlling yourself of your emotion esp.

To all parents, mother and father alike, the first step to parenting is to start from yourself. Tell yourself today; no amount of tantrum, no amount of crying and weeping and no amount of annoyance will let you lose your handsome and pretty cool again. To be honest, and I am proud to say that loud. So far, after 16 months of being a father myself, I haven't really lost my cool. Really, and I don't even have to tolerate myself to reach that level. All becos, I believe I have a different kind of mindset on parenting. It's getting late now and I am tired, maybe I’ll share again next time on how I see and feel on parenting in a way that I can manage my emotional more positively.

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