One of my very closest friends is mother to three (wonderful!) girl children. They are aged 8, 12, and 15. I've known them since the eldest was 10. My friend is like family to me, and her children are like nieces. I love, love, love them.
My friend's parenting style is very different than mine. Also, I learn a lot from her. So far, I've found that different methods that work for my family (during different periods of time) don't necessarily work for other families and vice versa. Sometimes though, I catch myself thinking, "that's not what I'M going to do when MY kids are teens".
My children are still LITTLE, and already I've diverged from what I THOUGHT I was going to do, as a mother and as a family (or what I thought would work/wouldn't work).
I'm curious, for those of you who are raising older children, or whose children have flown the nest, did you raise your children the way you thought you were going to? Did you find that you were a different mom than you thought you'd be? Did implement unexpected tools, or did the techniques you were attached to fall short of expectations?
No right/wrong answers, I just thought it would be interesting to hear! Have a beautiful day and a happy weekend!
I never really knew what kind of parent I wanted to be other than I wanted to be better than my own. I think I have managed to do that, mine are 8 and 15 and will sometimes opt to stay home and hang out with us than go with their friends. I have always tried to make them better "men" respect, responsibility, preparation. These are the three things I expect from them to grow up and be contributing adults.
I have four daughters, ages 30 to 17. They're all wonderful people whose company I enjoy greatly. Still, yes, I think I parent differently than I expected I would. And I also parent my youngest differently than my oldest (which I know irks my oldest no end). My objectives and standards are the same; my techniques and tactics are different. I've learned over the years what matters and what to let slide. I've learned the importance of maintaining a sense of humor. I've learned how to keep my standards but welcome differences in ways of achieving those standards.
I am not the mom I thought I'd be. I'm not the mom I was 20+ years ago. But I think I'm OK.
I've discovered that the personalities of my children have forced me to adjust my parenting a bit. Things went incredibly smoothly with my first child. We are stricter than most parents we know, and our oldest responded beautifully to our parenting. Then six years later we had our youngest. He is much more emotional, and falls to pieces if we look at him cross ways. He isn't naturally organized like the rest of us. He is creative and sensitive. We still have very high expectations, but we soften the way we deliver those expectations at times. We are still learning and adapting all the time.
I have three girls ages 14, 9 and 2. The oldest has a different biological father and is VERY different in temperament. So I thought I was a great parent and was patting myself on the back for my superior parenting techniques because she was such a well behaved baby/child (and still is as a teen!)
Then the next one came along and taught me a very big lesson. The same things don't work for every child. And temperament is HUGE.
My "challenging" child took so much of my energy that I didn't know if I wanted to or could handle another child. 8 years later I had my youngest. She is somewhere in the middle, temperamentally. And I am certainly WAY more relaxed about a lot of things with her. She will probably "get away" with more and be more spoiled in certain ways, but in other ways we have got a whole arsenal of parenting/discipline techniques we learned from our other two and are able to be much more effective. So things just run smoother, it seems to me.
I also relaxed many "ideals" like cooking everything from scratch and so forth - we eat healthy but I am not fanatical. :)
For the most part, I didn't have a specific plan for raising my daughter - I just did what felt right and treated her form the get-go like an intelligent human being rather than a little barbarian in need of civilizing, and most of the time, that worked out pretty well.
I was a nanny for several families before marrying and having my own kiddo. I remember the united front of most of those parents, and how incredibly inconsistent one single mom was, and as a direct result, how her toddler was in a constant state of turmoil.
I learned a lot from those families - how I would (and would not) parent, and how to pick my battles. I was just thinking yesterday about one example from the early days: instead of "you need to wear THIS COLOR socks", it became "you need to wear socks. If you don't wear socks, you might get blisters. If you get blisters, I will carry your shoes, but not you."
Yes I resolved as a teen that I would never hit my children under any circumstances. I stuck to that and I am not sorry.
What I did not know in advance was how much silence I needed. They told me it was repressive to have to be so quiet. Though I let them play music whenever that wanted I could not take any quarreling. They never fought in front of me. Only when I was at work.
My husband often says that we have "those kids". You go to the store and see someone with their kids or know someone and their kids and tell yourself, my kids won't be like that. Or you see someone with their kids and it is a good day and the kids are the most perfect little angels. All kids have some type of meltdown and it always seems like it is all the time. Yes, we have changed the way we deal with different things. We even deal with our older kids differently because what works for one does not work for the other. We already see that our 3 yr old is TOTALLY different from the older 3. She is a lot more outgoing, daring, independent than they were. I get comments that it must be so much easier now than before. No. It was easier with 3 at once than with 1. I am a little afraid to find out what this next one will be like.
My goal in life was to be a SAHM and Wife and for the most part that is what I have been. There were times I had to work and didn't mind because I did it for my kids. I always look at things this way. I chose to be a Mom my kids didn't ask to be born so I always treated them with love and respect and gave them all a lot of attention, I praised them for everything they did even though they were always honor roll students I still told them how great a job they did. I love them all the same even though they are all special to me in their own way and they know it one is oldest, one is the only son, one is the youngest. Mine are all out of the nest but they all live near us. I was the middle child and we were all loved but it is tough being in the middle I never wanted my kids to feel like I did at times. Did I ever mess up with my kids of course I did but they ALWAYS knew they were loved. The two that are parents now raise their kids just like me which makes me happy. My son had to do a speech in college on his hero and he did it on me, I was invited to hear him read it I recorded it with tears streaming down my face, I guess I did something right :)
Everyone "KNOWS" how to raise a child of a specific age before they have a child of that age. The trick is not subjecting yourself to your ideas after you realize you were wrong.
In other words, my child will never do this, then the child does. Don't beat yourself up because you were probably being unrealistic in the first place.
I will do this this and this if they do whatever, if this this and this are not working try something new because that may work. This didn't work, clearly.
Oh and even if you have older kids never assume the younger ones will react the same way to the same stimuli. They seem to learn from the older one's mistakes and make new ones. :-/
I've learned a lot, but I think my initial instincts as a mom were correct -- that love and attention and listening are the most important elements.
Where I changed or fell short in my parenting, is when I was tired or overwhelmed or became frustrated. In that case I resorted to brusque or improper or ineffective parenting -- yelling, not taking the time I needed to with them, etc.
Looking back, the main thing I would do is sweat the small stuff way less.
I can honestly say, I've parent different than I thought I would, even as young children to teenager, my oldest is 16, then 14 then 4.5 year old. My husband has a lot to do with it. I still the remember the first time my husband discipline the kids and I have never told him but inside my head I was like, how dear you scold my child... He's more firmer and have higher standards for the kids to achieve then what I have, however, I've seen his way work better. His attitude is be their parent and can be their best friend when they are grown... I at first had more of the attitude to be their best friend and parent which doesn't work too well (at any age).
When I was younger I thought my kids would even act different than who they really are... each has their own personality, and that's a big factor. They may have some similarities but they also have their difference from one another so what works for one doesn't always work for the other. Then throw in hormones and genes that didn't come from me (LOL) and each is their own...
I can honestly say, my husband has made me a better mother... Is his way right, not all the time, and I'm not exactly like him in everything. We try to be on the same page, however, we are both can be hard headed sometimes. He's more consistent than I am, I'm the push over one too, but that has to do also with who I am. So far they are turning out pretty good, of course there are things I would have done different if I could go back in time... With the older two, I've had the majority of their teachers (throughout the years, not just one year or so) said they wish they had a room full of my kids, so I must be doing something half way right.
