Author
Qualifications:
B.A (majors in Communication and Journalism); Grad. Dip. Management (major in marketing); Dip. Computing; Dip. Childcare.
Experience:
I have worked with children for the last 15 years, in schools and in after school programs. I owned and operated childcare and tutoring businesses as well as working in schools with preschoolers, special needs and migrant children. I currently work as a consultant for an etiquette and social skills academy.
Prior to having children, I worked as a researcher and analyst for government departments.
I am still busy raising three children so I understand the difficulties parents face every day. I felt a need to create this website because of my observations of parents and children. Every day I see parents struggling to stay one step ahead of their kids and I see children with no respect, bad manners and no ability to control themselves. They are all doing the best that they can but the tools they have been working with are just plainly ineffective. I want to make things easier for parents and children by helping them see through the guff they have been fed all these years and show them a more effective, tried and true approach. I have used the methods discussed to help several families find balance and peace again.
Author's Story
My siblings and I were raised in what might seem an old fashioned way today. My father only had one consequence and form of discipline: a smack on the hand. It may seem contradictory but this actually made our life as children secure and predictable. In all the years growing up, I never saw my Dad lose his temper or treat us with contempt and disgust. My mom was the nurturer and the teacher of manners. The two of them worked together to teach us right and wrong, ethics and values so we grew up with a strong sense of who we were and the kind of life we wanted to lead.
When I got married, my husband and I agreed to wait two years to have children. Being a voracious reader and seeker of knowledge, I promptly set about reading every book I could get my hands on about childraising. In retrospect, a huge mistake. I didn't actually have any issues with the way I was raised, so it was foolish of me to accept blindly the information I was given by 'experts'. It all made so much sense on paper, though. When my daughter was born, I was ready. I enthusiastically implemented all the advice of experts on breastfeeding, bedsharing, bonding, stimulation and feeding to discipline, nurturing, esteem development...you name it.
Several years ago, I finally took a good hard look at my family and asked the question: was what I was doing, working? Resoundingly, I had to admit - no. My oldest daughter was 11 years old and was argumentative, complaining and disobedient. Her manners were still a work in progress. Yet by the time I was 12, my Dad no longer needed to discipline me and my day to day manners were fine. I was miles away from reaching that point with my own children! My other two kids were following in my daughter's footsteps and I was exhausted from the constant need to stay one step ahead of my children. Clearly, I was doing something wrong. My friends were in the same boat. They kept saying children were just more precocious today but that sounded like an excuse to me. The children I was working with all required firm handling and their parents often seemed frustrated and lost.
After a lot of soul searching, I decided to go back to basics and start re-parenting my kids the way I should have from the start- the way my parents raised me. There was resistance, of course. Yet within weeks, I noticed a marked improvement in my children's behaviour! Particularly the younger ones who were still at an age where a smack on the hand worked wonders. My older daughter required additional forms of discipline to pull her into line but even she started to calm down and be more polite. I realised some of that had to do with me feeling in control again and being calmer in my interactions with the children. The kids started having a clear idea of where the boundaries were and just how far they could push them, and I knew how to react when they did. It made life so much simpler, and allowed me the time to focus on teaching manners and values again instead of constantly trying to pull the kids into line. It allowed me to start having fun with them again instead of feeling frustrated and stressed because of the constant arguments every time I told them to do something. The proof of the pudding came a year later when a family member approached me and said how likeable my oldest daughter had become -previously, they had just politely avoided interacting with her as much as possible. Sad but true. Since then, things have been constantly improving.
I have since done much research into modern parenting techniques and old fashioned methods. As a result of this, I decided to help other parents who were struggling to find an answer to their own parenting woes, by preparing this website so parents who wanted to change their own family situation had some resources to do so; and people who were doing a bit of research before having their own family could learn from other people's mistakes and raise their own kids well from the beginning.
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