Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Parenting: How Things Change and Judgement

How's everyone doing on this fine Tuesday? I hope all is well with all of you and you are conquering your early week tasks.

Baby J is teething right now (4 top teeth all at once, YIKES) so he needs some extra comfort which in return has not allowed me to get much research done on my next product review. But, I did have some other topics I wanted to discuss with all of you and wanted to get some feedback on what you think about some of these issues.

As new parents, my husband and I have discussed how we want to raise our kids. Now Baby J is only 9 Months old, but it's never too early to discuss how you want to parent. Will we be strict? Will we try to be the "cool" parents of the group? When will we let them get a cell phone? What about computer and social media access? Will we give allowance or just buy things freely?

There are a million questions as parents, but you will never have definite answers. I think generally you have an idea of how you want to be as a parent and how you want to deal with certain issues. However, I don't think you can truly know how you will react and solve the problem until the situation comes along. I think we reflect on how we were raised to determine how we want to be as parents, but so much has changed since then and the big no-no's of our generation, are normal occurrences now days.

My parents weren't strict, but they taught us right and wrong. My sister and I weren't angels by any means. We lived in a small town, and we knew that if we did something wrong our parents would find out and we would suffer the consequences. We both didn't want to deal with our consequences because our parents were tough when it came to discipline. Discipline has become such a different thing through the years. If you were too tough or spanked your children it was considered child abuse in some eyes and you were a bad parent.. If you were too nice and just let the child off easy, you were considered a push over and a bad parent. So which is right or wrong? You be the judge. Because they are your children.

Obviously, things are different. My sister and I had cell phones, I was 11 years old and she was 14 years old. Which 11 years old seems too soon to give a kid a cell phone now, but our phones weren't anything like the phones now. We couldn't text, couldn't take pictures, use the internet, and the only game we could play was snake. We didn't have the social media that kids have now, which causes a lot of trouble. We had a family computer that was in a public area so our parents could see what we were doing. We were active in sports and we played outside all the time. It seems as if kids are glued to the TV, video games, and their cell phones these days.

Now, I am only 23 years old and I am a new parent so I am not an expert parent by any means. But, I do notice things happen that wouldn't fly with our parents and realize how much things have changed. There are many ways to raise a child, and different types of parenting. I have no right to judge how you raise your children. Like I said, we have a general idea of how we want to be as parents but we will never really know until the situation comes along.

I think we reflect how our parents have raised us and use that to better our parenting. Luckily, my in-laws and my parents had the same type of parenting and that helps my husband and I agree on a lot of our parenting "rules".

So, here are my questions: Does your parenting style resemble your parents? What differences did you have compared to your spouse? What are some things you notice about todays generation, that wouldn't have flown with your parents? Do you feel judged by other parents? If so, for what reason? What are some of your rules for your children?

I would love to hear your feedback! Leave a comment below or message me with your answers!

Until next time, Loves!

- Danielle

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