On Parenting- a Personal Journey


Last Christmas, I resolved to not buy Christmas presents for my boys ever again. my hard work and thoughtful effort to engage them in something other than video games ended up sitting in the garage collecting dust. Besides, Christmas is about the birth of our Savior and learning to be like Him while sharing His light with others. Still, I changed my mind, and I've been racking my brain and asking questions to get ideas, ideas that would make my children happy and meet my approval.

On the way home from my son’s Winter Concert, I wove the questions into our conversation. That did not go so well. He wanted a gaming PC. I attempted without success to motivate him to get good grades to earn that PC. His responses included, “I hate you.” “You only want to ruin my life. You want to take away my opportunity to have fun.” And more subtly, “You should go kill yourself. You’re the worst parent ever.” After several futile attempts to reason with him, to encourage him to believe in his abilities, I utilized what I learned from a book on parenting: I acknowledged that he was upset; I told him that he shouldn’t say harsh things like that, and I told him that we weren’t going to talk about this anymore right now. He huffed in agreement and quietened, and we drove home in pleasant conversation with the rest of our family. A few months ago, this would have ended very badly. I would have raised my voice in anger, and he would have responded with a terrible temper tantrum, kicking the seats and screaming more insults.
The Parenting Pyramid
According to The Arbinger Company (1998), “The solution to a problem in one part of the pyramid lies below that part of the pyramid. It all boils down to who we are as individuals, and encompasses our beliefs, values, likes, dislikes, circumstances and everything that makes us the way we are. Our personal way of being affects our behavior with our spouses. That influences the type of relationship we have with our children. The relationship we have with our children affects the effectiveness of our teachings. When we invest more effort in our parent-child relationship, it becomes easier for our children to learn from us. It follows naturally that less time is needed for correction; we can rest assured that we’ve done a good job at helping our children develop into people we can admire, trust and support. 

Self-Care
Almost two years to date, I ran out of a sacrament meeting and fell to my knees on the sidewalk sobbing, “I can’t do this anymore.” My 10 and 12-year-old sons were sitting on both sides of me in the chapel when they began fighting and arguing with each other. My pleas for them to be reverent and stop fighting were largely ignored and they became louder. Embarrassed and at my wits end, I ran. Up to that point, I was taking seven credits in school, working full-time, and serving as the primary president. As a single mother, this left little time for my children; I largely neglected teaching them. I largely neglected spending time with them.

I began therapy a week later. There, I learned an eternal truth: my therapist pointed out that there is only 100% of me. If I gave all of me to work and school, then I had nothing to give to my children. I was running on fumes by the time I arrived home, with no reserves for the bickering between my children. As Romney (1982) pointed out, “How can we give if there is nothing there?” “Support and understanding cannot come from the emotionally starved. Teaching cannot come form the unlearned.” My basic need of enough sleep was not being met, nor was I refueling my tank in any way; there was no time for giving back to me. How then could I nurture children who were begging for my attention in a way that was sure to make me take note of them, albeit with negative behavior and consequences?

As parents, it is our responsibility to teach our children and help them grow into respectful, reliable, decent human beings. It is our responsibility to teach them with love, patience and compassion. Children learn by experience and by example. As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, it is required of us to set aside the natural man; to be patient, gentle, long-suffering and most importantly, loving, in all our interactions with our children. It requires us to change our personal way of being, and to become more like our Savior, Jesus Christ. As I have made changes in my personal way of being, taking better care of myself, and seeking knowledge to help me become a better parent, I have seen wonderful changes in my relationship with my children and improvements in their behaviors as well.

References
Arbinger. (1998). The parenting pyramid. Retrieved from: https://content.byui.edu/file/91e7c911-20c5-4b9f-b8fc-9e4b1b37b6fc/1/Parenting_Pyramid_article.pdf
Faber, A. and Mazlish, E. (2012). How to talk so kids will listen & listen, so kids will talk. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Romney, M.G., (1982). The celestial nature of self-reliance. General Conference. Welfare Session. Retrieved from https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1982/10/the-celestial-nature-of-self-reliance?lang=eng

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