Can you mess up in your parenting and still have great kids?
Of course you can!
Parenting is not a science but if you know about child development and read this book - you'll realize you can do it with
less anxiety and much less guilt.
99 pages packed with useful information
YOU CAN TOTALLY SCREW UP AS A MOM AND STILL RAISE GREAT KIDS
If I, a Developmental Psychologist with an expertise in early childhood, messed up – why should you expect to be perfect?
And while the title is directed at mommies; all I have to say here is meant for daddies too. In most homes still, yet, whatever; mommies are the major child caretakers.
This book was written to hopefully help alleviate the guilt that parents feel before during and after raising their child.
caveats - please be sure to read
If you are a person who thinks daddy or mommy is not to be questioned - do not buy this book - you will be offended..I also have a New York style sense of humor [sarcastic and odd] so if that offends you - please do not buy my book...you'll be unhappy.
Excerpts
From the Introduction
Another parenting book? Yup!
My son read the manuscript, of course, and so I asked him for comments.
First he said he did not remember all that I wrote about his early years but he was sure I was accurate about them...
What he did recall was that he felt I was unique because he had a say in decision-making and some of his friends seemed not to have that say. Not that we did as he suggested but that his voice was heard. I was not a totalitarian!
He still calls me his “parental unit” and said that while he is not all that keen on my writing about parenting him, “it’s my life and whether or not I like it, you were there too.”
Yes he has known this book was in the works and has hinted that he may comments to make if I do the parenting teen one.
[not so sure I want to hear those comments again ]
people need to know what the rules are. Then they can distinguish right
from wrong.
But, and as they say this is a big but, they also need to want to act in
the correct way and they need the ability to control themselves.
So ask – can young children even be considered as having morality or being
capable of behaving in the adult definition of these terms?
I think not.
The start of this process of moral development and behaving is the ability to
put yourself in the place of another - and that’s a high level cognitive
concept.
I’ve written before that cognitive growth is at the root, so to speak, of all
development – and here it is again. You need a certain amount of complex
cognitive ability to behave in what we call a moral fashion.
But being moral is not the same as being well behaved. In fact many of what
we call “well behaved” children are only behaving out of fear. An older study
indicated that scaring children into behaving as the adult wishes them to
behave tends to result in the behavior only happening when that adult is
around.
For example – if a parent threatens or scares a child about crossing streets –
that child is more likely to look around for the parent – and NOT look at the
traffic. The same can be true for school behaviors. “Well behaved” children
tend to be loved by teachers but it does not mean the child is sitting there
learning academic material – they may be sitting there with all their thoughts
focused on keeping still because they were scared into thinking that was
“correct.” This behavior takes up a lot of mental energy – energy that is not
going toward learning school material.
You just never know where your words are going to end up!
I was on Twitter chatting with a friend and I told her about my daughter and something she had said when she was a young child. She'd drawn a picture of the family but her younger sister was missing from the picture. When asked where she was, she replied with a very serious face, "She's still in the pencil, silly." We all erupted in laughter because she was such a funny little thing.
Well, Dr Lynn Dorman Phd, an American Psychologist was in the process of writing her e-book, "You can totally screw up as a mom and still raise great kids!" She sent me a direct message asking if she could use that quote in her e-book.
Well, surprise, surprise, her e-book is finished and there is Sarah's quote on Page 84.
I love the thought that a 70 year old woman would take the time to share her wisdom with the younger generations. There is just something very special about our Elders and it touches my heart when they desire to reach out and pass on what they know.
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 Before We Talk Babies And Children Let’s Talk “Uniqueness”
Chapter 2 Okay Now Let’s Talk Babies
Chapter 3 Early Infancy
Chapter 4 Infancy 1-3
Chapter 5 Those Developmental Tasks
Chapter 6 Behaving - What On Earth Does That Mean?
Chapter 7 Putting It All Together And Taking It On The Road
Chapter 8 Those “Pesky” Other “Things” That Raise Your Children
Chapter 9 Conclusion