Naptime Blog

There are many advantages to being a parent.  We get to experience love on a different level.  We get to see stages of life from the very beginning.  We get to see our children grow and develop their own unique personalities and strengths.  We get to see life once again through their eyes, and our own senses are renewed as we experience all that life has to offer once again through our children.  There are so many advantages the list is endless.

Another advantage to being a parent may at times seem like a disadvantage.  But if we use the knowledge that we gain from what we learn as a parent and make the necessary adjustments, it can be one of the biggest advantages we can forever thank our children for giving us.  That is the ability to see ourselves and our actions the way others see us.

A few months back I wrote a blog about how, as parents, we need to maintain our cool in front of our children.  I discussed how we model behavior to our children.  But if we really sit back and take a look at our children, we often see not only little echoes, but we might even see a mirror image of ourselves.  I can see myself in all of my children and I am reminded of the adjustments I need to make in my life.

My daughter is turning eight this month.  She is a great student, even though she doesn’t like school.  She is great at sports (she inherited that from her father and my sister, NOT me) and is a healthy, well rounded child.  My sister coaches Girls Basketball in the upper grades of my daughter’s school.  After practice one day, the girls were talking to my sister about my daughter.  Turns out, these older girls said that they see Juliana in the schoolyard sometimes and she is bossing around the boys in her class.  My sister was concerned and brought this to my attention.  I was alarmed, and had a talk with my daughter.  Juliana reported that she gets upset when the other kids don’t like to do things her way.  She told me that sometimes the boys do stupid things and she tries to tell them how to do things.  These comments really concerned me, because I realized that my daughter was just like me in that respect.  As a type A personality, I have always had to deal with my bossy tendencies.  Growing up, I spent plenty of time putting myself (and trying to keep myself) “in check”, and it took many years and many damaged friendships to realize that everyone has to live their own lives and I can only control myself. 

I am proud of my daughter for being a leader.  I am proud that she stands up for her beliefs, and I am proud that she is developing into a strong and independent young lady.  But seeing myself in my daughter, seeing one of my biggest challenges in life “in the mirror” has made me remember that I need to constantly be aware of how I cannot control everything and need to accept my faults and the faults of others and move forward.

My twins are 19 months, and can often be little parrots.  One of the boys is always being a clown, making everyone laugh and often needing to be reminded to behave.  I recently realized that I do the same thing my mother used to do.  I haven’t figured out yet if that is a good thing or a bad thing.  Whenever I used to get reprimanded by my mother, she would react by calling my dad if I needed to be reprimanded a second time.  “Lou!  Jennifer is not listening to me!”  So last week, when I reprimanded my son Louis (named after my father!), and he responded with “PAUL!” I knew that I used the same way of ‘reprimanding’ that my mom did.    When Louis misbehaves, I react by calling “Paul!”.  Louis just beat me to it by calling his father for me!

Funny thing is, my dad and I have always had a great relationship, and I don’t know why my mom always tried to make me afraid of him!  I guess she thought that having the male parent be the disciplinarian would work better than the female.  But, like in our house, my mom was the one who was home the majority of the time with the kids, and therefore had to do the majority of the disciplining when necessary.  So even if my children behave when my husband disciplines them, that will not help me when he is at work all day long!

I watch the twins interact with each other, and I watch my daughter interact with her brothers.  The twins talk to each other with their hands, pointing and shrugging their shoulders, making faces and raising their voices when they aren’t heard.  And they do it just like I do.  I recently was reminded once again how I need to watch how I react in front of my children, and how these little sponges were taking everything in.  My son Anthony will raise his voice and point his finger at his brother when his brother steals his cookies.  Just like I raise my voice and point my finger.

We are our children’s first teachers.  My little “echoes” are MY teachers.  When I see myself in them and see that their behaviors need to change, it reminds me that I am the one who might need to adjust MY behavior.  Just another advantage to being a parent.  We have that constant “mirror image” or “echo” that reminds us of what we may need to adjust.  As long as we follow up and work on adjusting it, we should be ok.  Just because we are grownups doesn’t mean we aren’t still learning, growing and changing, right?   

Jennifer
Wife to Paul, Mom to Juliana (8), Anthony and Louis (1) and Joseph (7 months)
www.nevaland.com

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 at 6:49 am and is filed under Article, Jennifer, School. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.