Hi. I am the mother of 6 children. Started out as a "To Train Up a Child" Pearl fan. EEEEK. That's what I was taught at church and by others around me. First marriage was abusive toward me and children (one his, two ours.) I got out, taking all the children, adopted his child, too. Married a wonderful man, had 3 more children. He adopted my other children, abusive man is totally out of the picture.
As you can imagine, my parenting style has changed dramatically from child #1 to child #6. I've always breastfed and such, but started out punitive and expecting absolute obedience.
As I've matured, my views have changed. My new husband helped me to realize the futility of things like making toddlers sleep in their own beds or "toilet training." We found out that if you love and respect children, they come to these milestones in their own time.
Old habits die hard, though. I'm one of those people who is constantly re-evaluating herself and I tend to feel guilt and assume fault for anything that isn't perfect. I still spank the young ones sometimes, at those moments when I am just too stupid and uncreative to know what else to do. Like when the 2.5yo bites the 4yo for the 47th time. I frequently yell at them (I hate that!) And sometimes, quite frankly, I just hide. There is so much sibling rivalry, so much anger in them.
They assault me with a constant barrage of "You mean! You mean!" They hit me, they pull on me, they try to literally tear off my clothes when they want to nurse. I don't handle it well. Sometimes I feel like I'm back in that abusive relationship -- Except now it is a 4yo and 2yo trying to beat me up!
What's hard for me is that my young children's behavior is AWFUL. When I was punitive, my children were angels. Punitive parenting works. I know people say it doesn't, but having tried both extremes, I have to say that my older children who were spanked and expected to obey were and are so pleasant to be around.
Also my older children are really good with the younger children. The young ones often respond better to them than to me, so they are often coming to my rescue. Is that messed up or what???
I'm trying hard to practice gentle parenting with these little ones. Their behavior is just awful. It discourages me. I know that GD is right. My intuition as a mother tells me that. How I feel about myself when I offer support rather than punishment during a tantrum tells me that. And I totally believe in parenting for the long term, e.g. my goal is to raise healthy people not have "good kids." But dang, I miss having "good kids"!
As you can imagine, my parenting style has changed dramatically from child #1 to child #6. I've always breastfed and such, but started out punitive and expecting absolute obedience.
As I've matured, my views have changed. My new husband helped me to realize the futility of things like making toddlers sleep in their own beds or "toilet training." We found out that if you love and respect children, they come to these milestones in their own time.
Old habits die hard, though. I'm one of those people who is constantly re-evaluating herself and I tend to feel guilt and assume fault for anything that isn't perfect. I still spank the young ones sometimes, at those moments when I am just too stupid and uncreative to know what else to do. Like when the 2.5yo bites the 4yo for the 47th time. I frequently yell at them (I hate that!) And sometimes, quite frankly, I just hide. There is so much sibling rivalry, so much anger in them.
They assault me with a constant barrage of "You mean! You mean!" They hit me, they pull on me, they try to literally tear off my clothes when they want to nurse. I don't handle it well. Sometimes I feel like I'm back in that abusive relationship -- Except now it is a 4yo and 2yo trying to beat me up!
What's hard for me is that my young children's behavior is AWFUL. When I was punitive, my children were angels. Punitive parenting works. I know people say it doesn't, but having tried both extremes, I have to say that my older children who were spanked and expected to obey were and are so pleasant to be around.
Also my older children are really good with the younger children. The young ones often respond better to them than to me, so they are often coming to my rescue. Is that messed up or what???
I'm trying hard to practice gentle parenting with these little ones. Their behavior is just awful. It discourages me. I know that GD is right. My intuition as a mother tells me that. How I feel about myself when I offer support rather than punishment during a tantrum tells me that. And I totally believe in parenting for the long term, e.g. my goal is to raise healthy people not have "good kids." But dang, I miss having "good kids"!
