Category: Let's talk
well just a matter of interest .. those of you who don't yet have kids, do you have an idea as to how those children will grow up? as to what you will and will not allow? and those of you who do have kids, did you too have all these pre conceived ideas as to how it was going to be and then things didn't quite turn out the way you planned?
"What do you mean they don't come with instructions?" can be heard of the newest mother to the nurseing staff! *smile*
Looking back I can't hardly beleieve we came this far (the youngest is 21 years...) anyhow I remember coming home from the hospital and feeling about as completely lost as anything. I had had major surgery C-section. I was home not even 5 days when my husband was in an auto accident and so it seemed when he was most needed by myself here I was facing being alone... at one point a nurse brought me his wedding band... it was then I realized just how "alone" I might be for it was then I faced the possibility that he might be critical to the point of death. No one would allow me to know his condition as I was in such the shape they thot I might hemmorage and be back in surgery.... Thank all Goodness he recovered from broken ribs and a hip that at one point was thought smashed and gone... Meanwhile I was torn between being with my baby who was less than 1&1/2 weeks old and a husband hospitalized with body broken. Got him settled and then I remained with our baby. WHY?!?!?! don't they come with instructions??????? ................. There really is a need are my thots for Parental Education Classes in High School for students.
maybe if they gave parenting classes to highschool students we might not have so many teenage pregnancies. I remember though how scary it was coming home with a new baby - When I was pregnant with Nathan I had all these ideas ... i was going to breast feed, was going to spend as little time as possible in hospital, go home the same day if possible (in this country you can get a discharge after 6 hours), and that was my intention. But then I had complications during the birth, nothing really serious, but complications none the less which resulted in things being different from how I imagined. and so ended up spending three days in hospital, and that first night Nathan had inhaled a lot of mucus during the birth and had to have his stomach suctioned, so boy was I glad I'd decided not to go home after 6 hours, and he ended up being bottle fed ... and when I came home, it was so scary! because you have this baby! and it's yours! and you have to look after it! I think the first night home I didn't sleep at all because I kept listening to see if he was breathing ...
I think that parenting classes would be a great thing, even for others besides high school students.
well that's all very well, but who exactly is qualified to decide how one should parent and thus teach it to others. after all, we all have different methods, usually there isn't a right or wrong way, just that some people do things differently to others, and some might disagree with the way others bring up their kids. The first rule to parenting is common sense, the rest, you quite often learn as you go along, remember, every child is an individual, and what works for one doesn't necessarily work for another, so thus there is no right or wrong way.
hmm I agree since... well my syster had a baby and well she needed to spend most of the time with her and the hard think to do with babies is to learn or to look at it since well they don't still speak so you don't know his/her needs...
that's the hardest thing, when a baby cries and you don't know why, especially when they're sik and they can't tell you what hurts. it's kinda like a guessing game.
I think the situation about schools offering "Parenting Classes" is not so much in regards to teaching values, etc.... but more so how to cope with a newborn and their needs to say the understanding of that infants needs through say a year old. Like at least hearing some one talk on the various crys of infants. Maybe they need changing, or to be fed or to be cuddled. Then maybe it is simply that hour of the day when they need to cry to strengthen their lungs and release their own kind of tension. .................... There was a teaching program in the Jr. High School age level when my kid sis-in-law was in school to where they had like an "egg" they had to care for and make sure it didn't get broke and all and if they wanted to go out with friends then they had to get this "egg," representing a newborn, a babysitter and record all happenings with this egg for like at least a week or maybe two. This program was to help make aware how much time a newborn requires. Maybe they have similar programs there?? We didn't have those programs when I was her age.
Haha, Claire, I'm not going to comment on this because otherwise, if we still know each other when I actually have a child and you hear me complaining, you'll make endless fun of me and remind me of all the things I said right now :-). Honestly, though, and without going into any detail here, I think it's pretty important to think about certain principles you want to follow when raising your kids before you have them. I find that way to many people's parenting style is reactionary in that they just kind of bumble through situations as they come along, without any coherent ideas of what they are doing, and how it will affect the child in the long run. Of course, that would only be a set of abstract ideas, and reality never conforms to anyone's ideas... you can then adapt as you must, but at least you started from knowning what you *meant* to do :-).
Well, I think, like everyone, I make flippant decisions about what I will and won't do when I have kids, but I s'pose most parents did the same at some point as well. I remember, during a developmental psych unit in my first year at uni, basically going through the textbook and counting up all the things my parents did wrong and thinking that I knew to do better when it was my turn. Then, at some point during the year I tried counting up all the things they did right, especially things that were unconventional according to current parenting advice at the time, and generally I don't think I could ever hope to do any better. As for the parenting classes thing, I had an interesting conversation with my Grandma recently, about changeing popular parenting methods. An example, when her first kid was born, it was recommended that babies should be put to sleep on their fronts for a more peaceful night's sleep. A few years later, when her second was born, sudden infant death syndrome was being investigated and it was absolutely essential that babies sleep on their backs. A few years later again and they should always sleep on their side to avoid choking in their sleep. I think current parenting wisdom is in a lot of ways no more certain than that of any other era, and surely the best any parent can do is be reasonably well-informed about what the experts say, and then make up their own mind. Just the thoughts of a 20-year-old who knows nothing about parenting, to be taken with a large amount of salt. Erin
Ohh Lou believe me you learn very quickly..smile..
Ugh! Let's just say, that I have found, and am still finding out, that "they don't come with instructions!"
I had the hardest time after coming out of hospital. I wanted to nurse her, and did rather well in hospital with a few setbacks, but when I got home, she wouldn't feed. She did eat once, but I couldn't get her to eat until about 3:00 when I was already so tired from not sleeping much in the hospital, and not at all at home, it was a nightmare. She did eat from a bottle earlier that night, after I broke down and told her father to feed her, while I went and cried in the bathroom out of frustration. I felt like I was always doing something wrong. And I didn't have any help. After feeding her, that was just about the only support I got from her father at all that first night out of hospital. I was on my own the rest of my first time at home with my new baby, and I had to change my first poopy diaper just after feeding her in the middle of the night, and let's just say that, was, not, fun! I didn't time it right, and you can probably guess the rest.
Now, as she grows, I have to kind of pick my way through,, because she has so many emotional problems to work through, with not having her dad, and not being able to do a lot of the same things kids her age do, and also suffering from much abuse from the children around her. They are just aweful and so hateful to her because of her having a mom who's blind, and who knows why else, she's constantly being made the target for the kids who live in our apartment complex. So, my poor baby, who has one of the biggest, most loving hearts I know, keeps being hurt, over and over again, and at times I feel almost helpless, like I don't know how to help her, and protect her! All I can do, is just be Mom, love her, kiss her hurts when she has them, and try and make the best of it for both of us! So, no, they most deffinentley do not come with instructions, and I also do agree that new moms, or couples who are thinking about being parents, and young teenagers and adults, should deffinently take a hard look at what they want, and what they can handle, and are ready for!
well this is it, and when you get pregnant, we have all these expectations, all these thoughts, about how it's going to be, and sometimes it just doesn't turn out like that. last week I went to a friend's son's birthday party, one of her friends there has a 9 year old son who is severely autistic. And she was telling me that when he was born he was the cutest baby, and that he was really advanced, his speech and everything was way ahead of the other kids, until he got to about 18 months old, and then it was if he went backwards, and now he has no communication skills at all. and she said to me, "when he was born, he was perfect, and although he's my child and I love him, when this happened, I had to mourne a child which I lost!" so whatever we expect of our kids, sometimes, things just don't turn out how we planned.