Recently I shared something on Facebook that I do personally as a parent. I just want to elaborate on it a little bit. Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook probably saw what I posted, or didn’t, I don’t know. Everyone has their own parenting style, no judgement here, this is just something that I personally adamantly believe in.
As a parent, I have chosen to shield my children from any negative thoughts or feelings I might have about a person or a situation. I try my best to keep them away from that kind of negativity. So I’m going to touch on that some more.
I don’t think that it is appropriate to discuss negative things around my children. I want them to form their own thoughts and opinions and not just be a product of what Joe and I think. I want them to break any generational curses that we have and be the people they are meant to be. I don’t want them to develop into people that just know what they heard from their parents and conform to our thoughts and beliefs. I also don’t want them to hear any negativity we have because I want them to have more positivity in their life.
How do I ensure that they are shielded from this negativity I speak of? Well folks, I’ll tell ya. It’s difficult sometimes, but it honestly helps me as well. It makes me calm down a little before I speak. Here’s the low down:
When I am experiences negative feelings, I try and collect myself first. Then if it is something that just has me feeling down I try and remove myself from my children and find an outlet, like writing, to help me get it out. If that doesn’t help and I need to discuss it with someone I will exit my house, the room, whatever it may be, and usually, I’ll call my mom and talk to her about it. If I am having a bout of depression, I will try and channel that into something positive like playing with the kids. If I’m feeling so down that playing with the kids or doing something positive seems impossible, I wrap myself up in my blanket in my room and close the door and take some time to collect myself and think about the immediate thing I need to do to get out of my “funk”. I try and stay in my room when I’m upset so that my kids don’t see me crying, or just sad. It is not their responsibility to comfort me.
When Joseph and I are having disagreements, I calmly ask him if I can speak to him in our bedroom, and then we separate ourselves from the children so they do not hear our disagreements. While disagreements are normal, I don’t believe that they need to see it and potentially think that they did something wrong or did something to cause it. They didn’t, and again, it is not their responsibility to fix the situation or to comfort us.
I do not speak badly about people in front of my children. If I need to vent about a person I either wait until the kids are in bed when I can speak freely (quietly) without the children hearing. OR, Joseph and I go into our bedroom and discuss the situation while the kids play. If neither of those are feasible, the kids go into “quiet time” where they go into their rooms or play together quietly in one of their rooms (they don’t nap anymore so we have “quiet time” everyday instead), and then Joseph and I are free to discuss. The reason I do this is because I don’t think that it is right to speak openly bad things about people in front of them because that skews their view of that person. I want my children to be able to form their own thoughts and opinions on people without seeing what we see. They will see on their own people’s behaviors and words and be able to make their own judgement. It is not my place to paint people in a bad light just so that my kids think they are bad people. This includes talking about ourselves. Little eyes and ears are around and they see and hear the things we say about ourselves. I do not want my children to grow up and think that they are bad for certain things, or their bodies are not the way they should be, just because Joseph and I have insecurities.
Also, we have started trying to practice gentle parenting. Which is very difficult, especially with judgement from other people who think that that is being “soft”. But really what gentle parenting means to me is that you listen to your children’s thoughts and feelings and take them into account, always. No more “seen not heard”. Children are humans too and they will grow up into adults and I want them to be able to recognize their thoughts and feelings and be able to communicate that with people. If we don’t allow that then you end up with people who can’t communicate with their partners down the line and that’s not good for their future partners or friends. If kids see their parents get upset and scream at them then they go into adulthood thinking the way you solve problems is by screaming and yelling, which we all should know by now that it’s not.
Don’t get it twisted though, I am still teaching my children to stick up for themselves. They won’t be anyone’s doormat. They will be kind, but not to a fault.
Children have their own thoughts and feelings and I will always treat my children as such. They deserve that respect from us to have their thoughts and feelings valued.
Doing better so our kids can be better over here.
