This week's material includes a ton of controversial debates, as I see these are opinions and everybody is entitled to their own. For my blog this week I decided to write about the different parenting styles as I feel this pertains the most to my own life. I will start off by saying I did not have the best childhood, hence is why I feel it's important to provide the best childhood possible for my daughter. I have a biological brother and sister and we were raised by a single mother, who was a very abusive drunk and avid drug user. The three of us were at the end of the spectrum where our parents were uninvolved, showed no type of love, and our life's were nearly unimportant to my mother as her drug and alchol abuse was. We could be categorized as part of the "uninvolved parenting", we did what we wanted when we wanted without any direction. Our grades were terrible, although my sister and I graduated from High School my brother did not.
Now that I have a child of my own I feel it's my job as a parent (as I made the choice to have a child) to show her the upmost respect and provide for her as I had desired all of my younger years. If I had to classify myself into one of the "4 types" of parenting styles I would fall mostly under the "Authoritative parenting" category. Although I beleive I have more than a fair degree of parental control, I am ALWAYS warm and responsive to my child. Here where the critics would say, I was raised one way and more than likely I would raise my child the same is absolutely incorrect. I believe that what I went through as a child taught me a life's lesson not to be the same as my mother. Although, my mother became clean and sober when I was 17, I feel there are so many things she did wrong that could have negatively impacted me as a mother myself, they didn't.
Hi Melissa
ReplyDeleteI did not have as extreme a childhood experience as you clearly did, but I can understand how you have totally rejected your mother's parenting style and substituted possibly what you wanted/needed as a child. My mother had a nervous breakdown while I was quite young and was inconsistent in her parenting (my parents were divorced when I was young and my father was present in only a limited way = all of which contributed to the breakdown). I was not the easiest child, prone to anxiety and night terrors and my mom was advised by our doctor to LOCK me in my room, if you can believe that. Anyway it has left me with a very particular notion of how not to raise my kids, and an idea - which I am still trying to figure the rights and wrongs of - of how to raise them happily.. Anyway, I just wanted to say I think I get what you are saying and good for you for overcoming the vicious circle of parenting!
I also had an extreme situation or situations in my childhood. I like the idea that we can reparent ourselves in a way by giving our children what we didn't have. Repairing the wounds in a way. There have been many situations with my kids where I have been reminded of how I was treated and then consciously made the choice to act differently. I'm not always perfect at this. Sometimes I can hear myself repeating something that was said to me. I think the saving grace for me in this is that I am aware and can stop and apologize or choose a different path. Progress not perfection.
ReplyDeleteI had never given much thought to what shapes our parenting techniques, at least no this much. It really is interesting when you sit down and catalog your own, as well as those around you, childhoods and how it shapes your parenting. What I have found is, folks get more input on what NOT to do from their childhood, myself included. My mother moved to Florida when I was about twelve after my folks divorced. She was not in my life from then on, and this has moved my parenting style more than anything. I find that I am always there for my girls, maybe too much. Overcompensation is an issue for me, and with several of the parents I wrote about and interviewed.
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