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
