Parenting

Well, I can't speak for anybody else, but my parenting mistakes, I think one of the biggest ones I've made through the years with a large family having 10 children is falling victim to thinking and sometimes verbalizing comparison amongst our children, whether it was academic comparison or behavior or gifts and abilities, whatever, just that is a real, I think, common mistake that's really easy as a parent to fall victim in doing is comparing our children with each other, and that is not a very good thing. So, you know, with four children left at home, I'm trying really hard. I've had a lot of years of parenting, nearly 30 in fact, and it's not necessary to compare our precious children with each other.

I think a common mistake that is made as parents is that mothers don't communicate well with their boys and fathers do not communicate well with their girls. And I'm talking about the embarrassing aspects of life. I've been very open with my boys and everything that goes on in the world and from a female's aspect. And I think that is something that is a very common mistake that there's embarrassment and there shouldn't be. Because the more your children know about the world, the better educated they are.

One common mistake I've seen in parenting is if you threaten a punishment when you're not really willing to follow through with that. I remember seeing some friends say, you know, if their child misbehaved, they would have to go home from the movie, but they weren't really willing to leave the movie and drive them home and stuff. So they would still kind of put up with it. And then the child learns that there's not really a consequence. If you're, you don't have to threaten a punishment that's really huge, but just be consistent when you say that something will happen and really follow through.

I think one of the most common mistakes I see parents making, in my opinion, is how they discipline or try to control their children. As a parent, you often find yourself, you know, going back and forth, like, should I be more loosey-goosey or should I be more strict? There's kind of pros and cons to both approaches, but I feel like ultimately a better approach is to strive to lead by example and learn to reason with your children and help them to choose to do what's right instead of forcing them to do it or coercing them or getting angry at them and trying to make them do what you want them to do. I think that can backfire, where children can become more disobedient if they feel anger from their parent. I also feel like it can be a lot better for the parent-child relationship to teach by example.

I think it's harmful for parents to call their children smart, because if it's so if the child thinks it's very important to the parent that the child looks smart the child will try to look smart throughout their lives, throughout their life. And when you're trying to look smart you don't take on challenges and you you stop trying if you fail once, because if you're smart you don't have to try again again. You make it look easy, you're a natural, but if you praise the child for for working hard, then the thing that they internalize is most important to the parent is, I work hard. And kids who think of themselves as hard workers work harder than kids who think of themselves as smart.

One common mistake that our parents do is that I think they bind their desires to some reward that if you want this dollhouse you will have to top the class or if you want this bicycle you have you will have to do your homework in time for 10 days or for 15 days. Similarly, sometimes they bind them with their pocket money with the amount of work they do at school or about the performance that they show at school. So, I think that this is very very dangerous mistake to make the children competitive at home while binding their desires to something that you really desire. It is like being a child with a child.

I believe one common mistake that parents make is that they often don't ask for forgiveness when they do something wrong. They don't often repent of something wrong that they have done toward their children or other family members. And I think it's very important for parents to set an example of how one should behave throughout their life, and that would be admitting that a person was wrong, working to not do that again, and to ask forgiveness. If children see that in a parent growing up, they will realize that it should be part of their life.

Another common mistake is that your children are not going to grow up to love everything that you love. You've raised them with certain principles and that's great, but you've shown them your world and they've discovered their world. So where they may have some things that you like, they're not going to like everything that you like. They're going to spread their own wings and they're going to fly and it may be to a bad place or it may be to a great place, but they're going to be their own people because they have other people in their life other than you and you need to remember that and respect that.

One other common mistake is giving in to the manipulations that children can get really good at. A friend of ours, their child had swore and so they had washed his mouth out with soap and then he was just, you know, boobing and complaining about, oh, his mouth and it tastes so bad. And then they apologized and helped him wash it out and I could tell who was really in control there was the child. So just be consistent with discipline and don't give in to manipulations that your children can get really good at.

Don't don't take off the cradle cap. Okay, so I'm gonna go out on a limb here I have an adult case of cradle cap. So I'm like, okay. Yeah, I'll just like scratch it all off It's like just just clear it away But it just like oozed and then just just made more like another layer instantly and and at any time and At any time I would scratch it off It would just it would just come back and from touching it so much who's like who washes their hands before anyway from touching it so much like it got infected and like swallowed up my lymph node and I couldn't sleep and And painkillers wouldn't touch it. Anyways, just let the cradle cap be quick scratch