doing the opposite of childhood caregivers.

especially my Mom. (moms seem to get all the bad credit when it comes to childhood hurts). I am a Mom too. SO I felt I wanted to do things opposite of her. littel examples, validate and listent to your child, praise them, achnowledge their feelings. If you make a promise , keep it. Realize their needs and meet them. Dontpunish them and not esplain it to your child or becoe violent. Dont fight in fron t of you rchildrent. I you are picking up your child after girlscputs or something, get there at the lated 10 minutes late, not hours!! Early arrival and meet them even better. Protect your child na dkeep tabs on them. As for th e perpetrator of evil, knowing not to hurt children in those ways.NOt humiliating children or using them.See things thru their eyes. Back to my mom, she was very busy adn involved in lots inour community. The ist goes one and one what she was in to. I felt like a failure as I could not d o even a small percentage of what she did in her life. I was very focused o nmy childrent and husband.Despite this rambling....Have you found yoursle f trying to do the opposite of those who hurt you?

Every day we try to live a life that is the opposite of what we lived through. It's important to not only know what we don't want to do, but also know what we do want to do instead, we were taught. There is much truth to this.

Not a mum (yet).
But the only thing my now estranged parents did was show me how not to raise a good well adjusted child with suitable esteem and self worth. I wil be adopting none of their "methods".

B

My dad used to tell me, in an attempt to make both himself and me feel better about how he lived and what he did (not necessarily related to parenting), "At least you'll know what not to do, right?"

Yeah, you got that right. Except there's a problem, dad. I now only know what I'm not supposed to do. I have no idea how to do what I am supposed to do. So, thanks for that.

*Possible Trigger Warning, mentions of abuse*
I do know one thing. My dad thinks the abuse stopped with him since he never physically or sexually abused me, and all kinds of abuse runs deep in his family. Well, the abuse didn't stop, because my dad never really thought about verbal or psychological abuse, which he ended up carrying over. With me, it all stops, all of it. I WILL BE THE LAST VICTIM IN THIS LINE OF ABUSE THAT HAS CARRIED OVER THROUGH GENERATIONS (on my dad's side of the family).
*End Trigger Warning*

-Cassandra

Greetings to everyone, but my message is more directed towards tomboy24.

I wish to tell you how inspiring and brave is that statement you made at the end of your post. It might not be easy, or perhaps it will, but it takes considerable effort to stop this from going from generation to generation. I wish you the best of luck in your project, and may all of us here who decide to raise children do so as well !

Thank you, lifepuzzle! I know it might not be easy, but I've learned that things in life usually aren't easy, and you just have to accept that some things will be difficult.

-Cassandra

yes that was a big wise statemnet. WHenever people ask me advice for raising kids...yes i acatually get asked that , DID and all. MY boys are in the special needs spectum...but arent all children special needs??? They are all unique people and special and have important needs. ANyway My piece of advice is that right from the getgo...from birth on, your child will tell you what they need. If you listen , actually listen with all your senses and your heart you will know what she/he needs along the way. it is a beautiful connection.

My piece of advice is that right from the getgo...from birth on, your child will tell you what they need. If you listen , actually listen with all your senses and your heart you will know what she/he needs along the way. it is a beautiful connection.

That is very good advice. I don't have kids of my own unfortunately but I've worked with special needs (autistic) kids and I have to say, this is very true.

We live quite a lonely life, no significant other, no children, not a lot of friends, but still we do everything different, even if it is only towards our own littles. But while most of us look at how we've been raised and just don't do those things, others (like Claire, Jeff and Florette) think about whether something they want to do would be good or bad, and some (Maya and Sammy) seem to have a natural ability of interacting with children, Maya can interact with all kinds of humans.

tomboy24 wrote:I now only know what I'm not supposed to do. I have no idea how to do what I am supposed to do.

This is sooo true. As a parent, I'm determined to do the opposite of what my parents did, but I have no models. I'm so confused about what's OK and what's not. I so often catch myself thinking and behaving towards my son in ways I believe are not right, ways that seem similar to my own parents, but when that's the only form of parenting you've experienced, it's damn hard to eradicate it. The best I can say is that I'm aware of it, and I'm trying to heal for myself so I can be better for him.