Like Giving Away Part of Your Time With Your Family and Your Children

How to Make Giving a Part of Your Daily Family Life

Por: Shamir Galvá

Giving your child the guidance and support he needs to grow up healthy involves all the skills of parenthood: nurturing, guiding, protecting, sharing, and serving as an example or model. Like other skills, these must be learned and perfected through practice. Some will be easier for you than others. Some will seem easier on certain days than on others. These variations are a normal part of raising a child, but they do make the job challenging. The following suggestions will help you make the most of your natural parenting skills so you can give your child the best possible start.

Enjoy Your Child as an Individual: Recognize that your child is unique—different from everyone else—and appreciate her special qualities. Discover her special needs and strengths, her moods and vulnerabilities, and especially her sense of humor, which starts to show itself early in infancy. Let her show itself early in infancy. Let her show you the joy of play. The more you enjoy your child and appreciate her individuality, the more successful you’ll also have a lot more fun being a parent!

Educate Yourself: You probably know much more than you think you do about being a parent. You spent years observing your own parents and other families. Perhaps you’ve taken care of other people’s children. And you have many instinctive responses that will help make you a giving parent. In other times, this probably would have been all the preparation you needed to raise a child. However, our society is extremely complex and is constantly changing. In order to guide their children in this new world, parents often benefit from some extra education. Talk to your pediatrician and other parents, and ask questions. Read about issues and problems that affect your family. Contact your local religious organizations, school systems and PTAs, child-care centers, parent education classes, and other groups that specialize in child-related concerns. Often these groups serve as networks for concerned and interested parents. These networks will help you feel more comfortable and secure when issues seem puzzling or frustrating, a not uncommon state today.

As you gather advice, sift through it for information that is right for you and your child. Much of what you receive will be very valuable, but not all of it. Because child rearing is such a personal process, there is bound to be disagreement. You are not obligated to believe everything you hear or read. In fact, one of the purposes of educating yourself is to protect your child from advice that does not fit your family. The more you know, the better equipped you’ll be to decide what works best for your family.

Be a Good Example: One of the ways your child shows her love for you is by imitating you. This is also one of the ways she learns how to behave, develop new skills, and take care of herself. From her earliest moments she watches you closely and patterns her own behavior and beliefs after yours. Your examples become permanent images, which will shape her attitudes and actions for the rest of her life.

Setting a good example for your child means being responsible, loving, and consistent not only with her but with all members of the family. The way you conduct your marriage, for example, teaches your child about male and female roles and how she’s “supposed” to behave as she gets older. Show your affection and take time for yourselves as a couple. If your child sees her parents communicating openly, cooperating, and sharing household responsibilities, she’ll bring these skills to her own relationship.

Setting good examples also means taking care of yourself. As an eager, well-meaning parent, it’s easy to concentrate so hard on your family that you lose sight of your own needs. That’s a big mistake. Your child depends on you to be physically and emotionally healthy, and she looks to you to show her how to keep herself healthy. By taking care of yourself, you express your self-esteem, which is important for both you and your child. Getting a sitter and resting when you’re overtired or ill teaches your child that you respect your self and your needs. Setting aside time and energy for your own work or hobbies teaches your child that you value certain skills and interests and are willing to pursue them. Ultimately, she will pattern some of her own habits after yours, so the healthier and happier you keep yourself; the better it will be for both of you.

 Show Your Love: Giving love means more than just saying “I love you.” Your child can’t understand what the words mean unless you also treat him with love. Be spontaneous, relaxed, and affectionate with hm. Give him plenty of physical contact through hugging, kissing, rocking, and playing. Take the time to talk, sing, and read with him every day. Listen and watch as he responds to you. By paying attention and freely showing your affection, you make him feel special and secure, and lay a firm foundation for his self-esteem.

Communicate Honestly and Openly: One of the most important skills you teach your child is communication. The lessons begin when she is a tiny baby gazing into your eyes and listening to your soothing voice. They continue as she watches and listens to you talking with other members of the family and, later, as you help her sort out her concerns, problems, and confusions. She needs you to be understanding, patient, honest, and clear with her.

Good communication within a family is not always easy. It can be especially difficult when both parents are working, overextended, or under a great deal of stress, or when one person is depressed or angry. Preventing a communications breakdown requires commitment, cooperation among family members, and a willingness to recognize problems as they arise. Express your own feelings, and encourage your child to be equally open with you. Look for changes in her behavior that may signal sadness, fear, frustration, or worry, and show that you understand these emotions. Ask questions, listen to the responses, and offer constructive suggestions.

Listen to yourself as well, and consider what you say to your child before the words leave your mouth. In anger or frustration it’s sometimes easy to make harsh, even cruel, statements, which you don’t really mean but which your child may never forget. Thoughtless comments or jokes that seem incidental to you may be hurtful to your child. Phrases like “You stupid idiot,” “That’s a dumb question,” or “Don’t bother me” make your child feel worthless and unwanted and may seriously damage her self-esteem. If you constantly criticize or put her off, she may also back away from you. Instead of looking to you for guidance, she may hesitate to ask questions and may mistrust your advice. Like everyone else, children need encouragement to ask questions and speak their minds. The more sensitive, attentive, and honest you are, the more comfortable she’ll feel being honest with you.

Spend Time Together: You cannot give your child all that he needs if you only spend a few minutes a day with him. In order to know you and feel confident of your love, he has to spend a great deal of time with you, both physically and emotionally. Spending this time together ids possible even if you have outside commitments. You can work full-time and still spend some intimate time with your child every day. The important thing is that it be time devoted just to him, meeting his needs and your needs together. Is there any fixed amount? No one can really say. One hour of quality time is worth more than a day of being in the same house but in different rooms. You can be at home full-time and never give him the undivided attention he requires. It’s up to you to shape your schedule and direct your attention so that you meet his needs.

It may help to set aside a specific block of time for your child each day and devote it to activities he enjoys. Also make an effort to include him in all family activities—meal preparation, mealtimes, and so forth. Use these times to talk about each other’s problems, personal concerns, and the day’s events.

Nurture Growth and Change: When your child is a newborn, it may be difficult for you to imagine her ever growing up, and yet your main purpose as a parent is to encourage, guide, and support her growth. She depends on you to provide the food, protection, and health care her body needs to grow properly, as well as the guidance her mind and spirit need to make her a healthy, mature individual. Instead of resisting change in your child, your job is to welcome and nurture it.

Guiding your child’s growth involves a significant amount of discipline, both for you and for your child. As she becomes increasingly independent, she needs rules and guidelines to help her find what she can do and enlarge that. You need to provide this framework for her, establishing rules that are appropriate for each stage of development and adjusting them as your child changes so they encourage growth instead of stifling it.

Confusion and conflict do not help your child to mature. Consistency does.

Make sure that everyone who cares for her understands and agrees on the way she is being raised and the rules she’s expected to follow. Establish policies for all her caregivers to observe when she misbehaves, and adjust these policies along with the rules as she becomes more responsible.

Another way you nurture your child’s growth is by teaching her to adapt to changes around her. You can help her with this lesson by coping smoothly with change yourself and by preparing her for major changes within the family. A new baby, death or illness of a family member, a new job for a parent, marital problems, separation, divorce, remarriage, unemployment, and chronic illness all deeply affect your child as well as you. If the family faces these challenges as a mutually supportive unit, you child will feel secure in accepting change and adjusting to it. By being open and honest with her, you can help her meet these challenges and grow through them.

Minimize Frustrations and Maximize Success: One of the ways your child develops self-esteem is by succeeding. The process starts in the crib with his very first attempts to communicate and use his body. If he achieves his goals and receives approval, he soon begins to feel good about himself and eager to take on greater challenges. If, instead, he’s prevented from succeeding and his efforts are ignored, he may eventually become so discouraged that he quits trying and either withdraws or becomes angry and even more frustrated.

As a parent, you must try to expose your child to challenges that will help him discover his abilities and achieve successes while simultaneously preventing him from encountering obstacles or tasks likely to lead to too great a series of frustrations and defeats. This does not mean doing his work for him or keeping him from tasks you know will challenge him. Success is meaningless unless it involves a certain amount of struggle. However, too much frustration in the face of challenges that really are beyond your child’s current abilities can be self-defeating and perpetuate a negative self-image. The key is to moderate the challenges so they’re within your child’s reach while asking him to stretch a bit. For example, try to have toys that are appropriate for his age level, neither too young for him nor too difficult for him to handle. See if you can find a variety of playmates, some older and some younger. Invite your child to help you around the house and have him do chores as he gets older, but don’t expect more of him than he realistically can manage.

As you raise your child, it’s easy to get carried away by your hopes and dreams for him. You naturally want him to have the best education, all possible opportunities, and eventually a successful career and lifestyle. But be careful not to confuse your own wishes with his choices. In our highly competitive society, a great deal of pressure is placed on children to perform. Some nursery schools have entrance requirements. In some professions and sports, youngsters are considered out of the running if they haven’t begun training by age ten. In this atmosphere, the popularity of programs that promise to turn “ordinary babies” into “super babies” is understandable. Many well-meaning parents want desperately to give their children a head start on lifetime success. Unfortunately, this is rarely in the children’s best interests.

Children who are pressured to perform early in life do not learn better or achieve higher skills over the long run than do other children. On the contrary, the psychological and emotional pressures may be so negative that the child develops learning or behavioral problems. If a child is truly gifted, he might be able to handle the early learning barrage and develop normally, but most gifted children require less pressure, not more. If their parents push them, they may feel overloaded and become anxious. If they don’t live up to their parent’s expectations, they may feel like failures and worry that they’ll lose their parents’ love.

Your child needs understanding, security, and opportunity geared to his own special gifts, needs, and developmental timetable. These things cannot be packaged in a program and they don’t guarantee the future, but they will make him a success on his own terms.

Offer Coping Strategies: some disappointment and failure are inevitable, so your child needs to learn constructive ways to handle anger, conflict, and frustration. Much of what she sees in movies and on television teaches her that violence is the way to solve disputes. Her personal inclination may be either to erupt or withdraw when she’s upset. She may not able to distinguish the important issues from the insignificant ones. She needs your help to sort out these confusing messages and find healthy, constructive ways to express her negative feelings.

Begin by handling your own anger and unhappiness in a mature fashion so that she learns from your example. Encourage her to come to you with problems she can’t solve herself, and help her work through them and understand them. Set clear limits for her so that she understands that violence is not permissible but at the same time let her know it’s normal and okay to feel sad, angry, hurt, or frustrated.

Recognize Problems and Get Help When Necessary: An enormous challenge, parenthood can be more rewarding and fun than any other part of your life. Sometimes, though, problems are bound to arise, and occasionally you may not be able to handle them alone. There is no reason to feel guilty or embarrassed about this. Healthy families accept the fact and confront difficulties directly. They also respect the danger signals and get help promptly when it’s needed.

Sometimes, all you need is a friend. If you’re fortunate enough to have parents and relatives living nearby, your family may provide a source of support. If not, you could feel isolated unless you create your own network is by joining organized groups, such as “Mommy and Me” and baby gym classes at your local YMCA or community center. The other parents in these groups can be a valuable source of advice and support. Allow yourself to use this support when you need it.

Occasionally, you may need expert help in dealing with a specific crisis or ongoing problem. Your personal physician and pediatrician are sources of support and referral to other health professionals, including family and marriage counselors. Don’t hesitate to discuss family problems with your pediatrician. Many of these problems can eventually adversely affect the family’s health if not resolved. Your pediatrician should know about them and is interested in helping you resolve them.

Your journey with your child is about to begin. It will be a wondrous time filled with many ups and downs, times of unbridled joy and times of sadness or frustration. The chapters that follow provide a measure of knowledge intended to make fulfilling the responsibilities of parenthood a little easier and, hopefully, a lot more fun.

From: CARING FOR YOUR BABY AND YOUNG CHILD birth to age 5 1991-1998