Better Parenting

Early in the week there was an article in the Deseret News titled "Tips for being a better parent in 2012."  I feel tips are often helpful, and I want to be a better parent, so I read on.  Allow me to share.

Tip one: Eat dinner together as a family.  We do this well.  I make dinner practically every night, and we always eat together.  I know.  My children are only five and three, so where else would they eat?  They aren't very good at actually sitting down at the table and consuming food, and I find that most of our dinner "conversation" is me and Kent nagging the children to sit down and eat something, but at least we are doing well to be together each evening.

Tip one was the only one on the first page.  I was feeling somewhat smug until I turned the page.

Tip two: Teach patience.  Drat.  How can I teach patience when I have none myself?  I'll have to work harder, lots and lots harder, to be better here.

Tip three: Give children lots of your time.  The article quotes Ellen Braun who writes a parenting blog at www.raisingsmallsouls.com, who said, "Our children, for the most part, are unaware of the myriad of things that we do FOR them.  However, they are fully aware of the thing which we do WITH them."  So this week I have tried to be more engaged with the children.  Blythe wanted to color this week, and rather than just getting out paper and crayons for her to use, I spread a long roll of paper out on the floor, stretched out on the floor next to her and colored with her.  We made this lovely drawing.

As we began, Blythe said, "Let's draw a family."  She always wants to draw a family.  She was fairly insistent on helping me.  As I would begin something she would scootch right over next to me and say, "I will do the roof," "I will do the door," "I will do the trunk."  She had to put dirt under the flowers, shoes on the family members, and when I got to the sun she said, "I will do the poky things."  She wasn't much interested in what the poky things were, but she knew they had to be there.  When I drew the two clouds she asked, "Is it raining?"  It wasn't; the white crayon just doesn't show up on white paper.  I was made to draw the sister, brother, and dad, but Blythe drew the mom.  The mom is the big-headed long figure wearing the pinkish-purplish dress, the large hat with a bell, and the colorful arms.  Blythe did a pattern along the arms, something she learned about from Brandt who is learning about complex patterns in kindergarten.

Thursday morning Blythe asked if we could do "an activity" while Brandt was at school.  I said yes and asked what activity she wanted to do.  She said, "We could play PBSKids.org, we could watch TV, we could do my princess puzzle."  Again, I agreed.  Then she said, "No Mom! I know what we can do!  We can make cookies and cupcakes!"  I made her chose one or the other, so we made cupcakes.  I will work hard on this one too.

Tip four: Get a pet.  There are all sorts of benefits to having a pet, and I am not averse to this idea.  I don't want a cat as too many of my family members are allergic to them, but I do like dogs and am more open to this idea than I have been in the past.  I have been unwilling to add an animal to our family, knowing I would have to clean up poop when I was regularly dealing with child poop.  We also had virtually no yard, but now we have a good size yard, so we may look for a pet in the spring.  And I want to get chickens.  Do chickens count as pets?

Tip five: Read with you children.  As with tip number one, I can be very, very smug about reading with the kids.  We began reading with Brandt at the beginning and we have never stopped.  There are few things I like better than snuggling with the children on the couch or in bed and reading to them.  They love it and I love it.  Kudos to us as parents.

So I guess for me, it all comes down to patience.  Drat.