ARE OUR CHILDREN CONSPIRING AGAINSTS US TO BE SEEN AS BAD PARENTS?????.

Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.

Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand

Psalm 127: 3 and 4

“HOPE MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE"

 Over my approximately ten years of struggling with infertility, I had enough time to learn from parents who desperately tried to do their best at parenting and as a result of what I saw, I created a blueprint of what I wanted my child to be like, and the parent I want to be, if and when my children did show up.

Now that I am a parent, it turns out that I cannot always use what I learned over those years, I have to totally abandon some things and tweak others, so that they work in my situations, because let’s face it, it really seems as if children are in a conspiracy to have us parents look like we are not doing a good job at parenting at all.

Our son is now developing his own personality and I tell you, some of his tendencies seem to be picked up from other kids in pre-school and they are frightening.

What I have seen though and cannot help but take notice, is that some children behaves very well in public and when strangers scold them, most actually do listen, and when we the parents do this, it takes a much longer time for them to adhere, sometimes leading to us to having to spank. Case in point, the other morning while we were taking our son to the car to leave for school, he was quite persistent that he wanted to sit in his booster seat and have his dad carry him to the car in the seat. He began crying and our neighbor who was nearby, saw what was happening and said to him, “stop, its too early in the morning for this behavior.” He stopped instantly and walked to the car with no further protest. I was grateful to our neighbor for stepping in, as my husband was getting no where close to restraining him, but on the other hand, this is something that I have to get used to, because the first thing that came to my mind was to feel that we are doing a poor job at parenting. Upon careful thought though, (and this has caused me to feel a little bit better), I have come up with the analogy that probably the reason this is so, is because our children are so close to us, we shower them with so much love and attention, (as in our cause, and understandably, due to our long and intense struggles with infertility) and so they see us as only figures of love and therefore does not take us too seriously, when we attempt to scold them.

There are however instances when we do not hold back scolding, for example, when we spank him and he attempts to hit us back, or when we scold him and he retreats to his room and slams the door (can you imagine a three year old doing this, I tell you, we are living in such different times, because as a child, one look from our dad, when we were being less than good, jolted us back in line). For behaviors such as this, we instantly react in no uncertain manner, to let him know that these behaviors will not be tolerated.

All parents out there and others, your comments are welcomed.

SPARE THE ROAD AND SPOIL THE CHILD?????

Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand
Psalm 127: 3 & 4

I know many parents have never spanked their children and do not believe in spanking children at all.

Infertility was difficult, as I have said over and over but raising a child, especially a boy,(I have heard these are harder) is now the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I hope I am not scaring anyone.

My son is at the stage which is termed the ‘terrible two’s,’ where he does not listen and throws tantrums. When he is doing things where he would hurt himself, climbing flipping etc., and I tell him to stop, I find myself sounding like a scratch record, telling him over and over to stop, to the point where I have to resort to physically stopping him or removing him, only to see him return to doing what I just tried to stop him from doing. By this time, I can hear my father’s voice, saying, ‘what is wrong with you parents these days?, you are allowing the child to rule you, you need to let him know who the parent is, meaning that he needs a spanking.’ Not wanting to feel like a total failure at being a parent, I am left with no choice but to give him two slaps. Then, the voices of all those parents who do not believe in spanking seem to chime in immediately thereafter, why are you spanking the child, do you want him taken away from you?

On Sunday, my son wanted to be with his father in the sound room, where he helps to operate the sound on Sundays. It would be difficult for my husband to carry out his duty because our son would be getting into things, as he is at the curious stage. He was so mad, he refused to sit quietly in church, instead he was throwing the program and hymn books on the ground, then he himself ended up on the ground. He was being a distraction so I took him outside. He lost his spine the entire way outside so I had to drag him like a ragged doll. By this time I was flushed with anger and embarrassment, I gave him two slaps. Junior church is usually held for them, but there was none today but he still wanted to go into the room. I went to the room with him where he kept himself occupied with the items used for Junior Church.

In episode two, I was sitting at the back of church with a friend waiting for church to end. We had just left the Junior Church room and he wanted to go back. I tried to stop him because I had no energy left to clean up after he had had his way in the room and that was when he ended up on the ground again. I decided to leave him there to cry out the tantrum. He cried and cried until his face was soaked with tears and mucus was coming for his nose. My friend attempted to pick him up but he did not want to be picked up. After crying for a while, he came towards me and I tried to pick him, he resisted and ended up on the ground again. I had had it, and so I gave him two more slaps. I regret having to do this in front of my friend as my husband and I had made a promise that we would not attempt to discipline him in the presence of other people, but I felt he had asked for it.

He soon calmed down enough that I could pick him up in my arms. At this point I felt like crying, having to see my child fall to pieces like this and worst, in the presence of someone else. I also felt inadequate as here I was unable to calm him and give him what he really needed. He soon completely calmed down and was about to go to sleep, but by this time, church had ended and soon as my husband appeared, I handed him over to him. For the rest of the day, I felt like I had ran a marathon, I could hardly find the strength to cook dinner.

This is the first time he had ever behaved like this at church.

I am very grateful for my son and it goes without saying that I am very much in love with him, but this is a very challenging time. Worst, I am from a background where our parents, especially our Dad, would just have to give us 'the look' and we would fall right back in line, fearing the spanking that would follow if we did not adhere. I wish I could do that to my son and then spanking would not be an issue at all.

I tell you and I can understand why some parents do not believe in spanking children because you can get really angry and hurt them, not really meaning to, especially when they act up in public and cause you embarrassment. This is especially so if you have other things going on in your life which is causing you stress and for mothers especially, we are often victims of our hormones. Little wonder, there is so much news out there, about parents who hurt children. I often wonder how a parent could hurt a child, but having the experience now, I can see why. This is why, when I am going through anything emotional, I try not to spank my son at all and I believe all parents should try not to do this.

Our son cries when his favorite cartoon ends, he cries when he cannot have his way and he cries of course when he is spanked. Many times I actually feel scared that my neighbors might send the Children’s Authorities on me, thinking that all those cries was because we were spanking him, to the point where the other morning I saw a car parked close to my home and a little while after that I saw a lady slowly walking by my house and looking over the fence, I felt really uncomfortable, what if my neighbors had done what I had been thinking? Mind you, my home is being sold by my Landlord, so it could be that this lady had seen the for sale sign and was checking out the property.

If you are a parent reading this, and you do not believe in spanking, please, please, give us some advice on how to discipline our son effectively, without having to spank him. He is our miracle baby and we really do not want to spank him at all, but on the other hand, we love him too much and really do not want to ‘spare the rod and spoil the child.’ I am thinking time outs could work but I do not think he is at the stage where he can understand what this is about, but I will definitely do that when he is older.

You may notice I use the word spank in my post. This is because I strongly believe no one should beat their children as this is child abuse.

Looking forward to your response.