Taking Back Parenting: How to Give Your Children What They Need to Succeed in Life

Author

INTRODUCTION

Wake Up! It’s Time to Step Up!

When was the last time you sat your child down, looked him or her in the eyes and genuinely, sincerely, apologized for something specific you had done wrong? When was the last time you were really able to feel at peace in your home? When was the last positive, anxiety-free conversation about sexuality that you had with your child? When was the last time you sent the message to your children that you really LOVE your body and are grateful for what it can do? Do you really enjoy parenting? Do you understand how to parent? Are you addressing daily what really counts with your kids?

I feel your anxieties, worries, and exhaustion. I even feel your worries about your apathy toward parenting. I have felt many of these same feelings. I started out parenting with an apathetic approach. I did not understand even one ounce of how important the job was and how much work it would entail. Then when the work of it all got the best of me and fatigue set in, resentment and anger kicked in even stronger. I started to recognize that there were things parents could really mess up for a child. Then I started to worry and hover. I am here to tell you I’ve been to many of the places you have been, and I want you to know as long as you are trying consistently to make changes for the better, you are doing all right! You are on the right track! And just the fact that you have picked up a parenting book tells me you want to make some changes; you want to learn some different parenting approaches. You want your relationship with your child to feel like it’s improving daily instead of deteriorating.

In this book, you are going to learn eighteen essential tools—one per chapter—for being a better parent. It doesn’t matter whether you are fifteen or ninety-eight. It doesn’t even matter if you have children. Because if you grow to be an adult in this world, you will no doubt have opportunities to influence children. And that’s what parenting is about: influencing your children for good, helping them to become independent, making them feel confident that they can contribute to society. If you implement these eighteen tools in your parenting, you will help your children learn how to make decisions and build confidence in themselves and their plans for the future. You will learn how to teach social skills to your children and help them build confidence in their knowledge of human sexuality. You will help them know what to do when their perception of sexuality gets twisted and contaminated by an evil influence such as sexual abuse. You will teach them to recognize pornography and know what to do with it when they encounter it. You will be able to teach them how to solve problems, set boundaries, and become emotionally self-reliant. Most importantly, in this book you will learn why gender is so important and how to explain that importance to your children.

I have fourteen years’ experience in working with parents and their children. I have worked in adoption, with eating disorders, and in residential treatment facilities for youths. I currently work in private practice as a licensed clinical social worker where I see a wide variety of issues presented by both families and individuals such as depression and anxiety, couples issues, sexual addictions, parenting issues, abuse, and neglect. In all my years of experience in the mental health field, these eighteen tools have stood out for me as being what the parent/child relationship most needs. I have the added qualification of being a parent myself; my husband and I have parented three foster children in the past, and we have four children of our own.

Most importantly, I am here for you. I want to help you. I want to help you see and understand what is critical to your success as a parent in the twenty-first century.

Are you already feeling nervous about making further efforts to be a good parent? I understand your apprehension. It is so difficult to make changes; it takes time, and often we don’t see results right away, which can be very frustrating. I understand that we often believe that if we admit we need to change our parenting, or we admit things are not the way we want them to be, or we admit our parent/child relationship is not living up to its true potential, that it somehow means we are bad parents and failures. I’m here to tell you that’s all baloney! You are already a good parent. There is already so much good parenting you do. I want to take what you already know, the good you already do with your children, and make it better.

I want to be your partner in this process. I’m a parent too. I understand you. I want to help take loads of stress and burdens off your shoulders and help you understand your potential to change the world for good. I want to hold hands with you and be your support. Parenting is the hardest job in the world, and I’m here to help! Let’s do this together!

Are you ready to begin this new process of change? Turn the page and let’s begin!

CHAPTER 1

Defending Your Role as Parent

Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.

— Benjamin Spock

My goal in this chapter is to inspire parents everywhere and to influence them in a positive and permanent way. I dream of mothers and fathers taking every opportunity to learn the importance of parenthood and securing the skills to be better at it. I hope with this greater understanding of the crucial role parents fill, people far and wide will be inspired by you as a parent and it will ensure an attitude of reverence and respect for the role parents fulfill every day. I imagine that when others learn you are a parent, they will react the same way toward you as if you said you were running for President of the United States of America, you just returned from climbing Mount Everest, you were a prisoner of war for five years while serving in the military, or you just graduated summa cum laude from Harvard Law School. I want jaws to drop, eyes to widen, and for you to receive an enormous amount of respect and admiration for the work you do.

Unfortunately, parents typically do not get this reaction, and I believe it is due to a great lack of understanding about what parenthood is and the importance of it. Our society just doesn’t get it. We do not really understand what the results of good parenting can be and how long these results can last. Great parents can influence all of their posterity, communities, states, and even nations through their children. In fact, as you try your best every day to be the best parent you can be, you provide an immeasurable service to all of humanity. You have the potential to do more for this world through your parenting than any other career, occupation, profession, education, or calling can.

So let’s put our energy into parenting. Let’s take all the lessons we’ve been learning in life so far and apply them to being a better parent. Don’t worry; I will be right here with you. I will be part of your support team, cheering you on every step of the way.

DEFENDING THE IMPORTANCE OF PARENTING

Each time I brought a new baby home to care for (my husband and I brought home foster babies as well as biological babies), my mother would remind me that we were literally saving that baby’s life every day as we fed and nurtured him or her. Babies are so helpless, and there is no doubt that a protecting parent is absolutely essential to their daily survival.

From day one, parents have the ability to teach, and infants have the ability to begin learning independence. The ultimate gift parents can give to their children over time is to teach them how to succeed in this world. We do this mainly through example. But we need to help our children recognize dangers and teach them what to do when they encounter them. They need to know the purposes of their existences and to understand their roles in a family unit. If we do not give this knowledge to them, they will not survive. It would be similar to a situation where someone handed you a game to play. Inside the box, you pull out a pencil, dice, some magnets, and a timer. Then the person says, Okay, go ahead and play. You wonder how in the world you play this game. What are the rules? How do you win? What is the strategy for winning? Are there any other players? YOU are the crucial part to your children getting through this life successfully. Don’t ever believe otherwise. Don’t ever give up on them. Don’t ever give up on yourself. As children grow, their needs from parents will alter and change; however, the necessity for positive teaching, influence, and love remains the same.

QUOTE ABOUT MOTHERS

The noblest calling in the world is motherhood. True motherhood is the most beautiful of all arts, the greatest of all professions. She who can paint a masterpiece, or who can write a book that will influence millions, deserves the admiration and plaudits of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons and daughters, whose immortal souls will exert an influence throughout the ages long after paintings shall have faded, and books and statues shall have decayed or have been destroyed, deserves the highest honor that man can give, and the choicest blessings of God.

— David O. McKay

QUOTE ABOUT FATHERS

Fathers are the best role models for their children. A million pieces of advice and suggestions are not equal to imitating the father. Children learn more from their father’s example than from any other book, school, or teaching tool. It is through a father that sons and daughters gain self-confidence. A father’s protective nature and ability to nurture is needed in all areas of a child’s upbringing. As with mothers, fathers are gifts offered by God to children.

— Author Unknown

Do you ever stop to think who gave you this responsibility to be a parent? Do you ever think about whose children these are? It is He, the holiest of all, our Heavenly Father, who trusts you with His children. It certainly must be one of the noblest callings and responsibilities to partner with the deity in a quest to create human life and then raise that human into adulthood. Think of it. If God trusts you enough to place one of His children into your family unit for you to teach what we know in the way we know how, He must think extremely highly of us.

I don’t know that we will ever in this life fully understand that concept, but we must try. If we don’t, we will begin to move in the opposite direction. Sadly, I believe we already have. That is why I am writing this book—to attempt to change the direction we as a society are moving. I want all of us to: Take Back Parenting.

Let me put it this way. Have you ever received a gift from a loved one that was not only worth a great deal monetarily, but had special meaning to your relationship? Have you received a gift with a message of immeasurable adoration and respect attached? Did this gift make you feel so loved and grateful that you created a special place for it and protected it from harm? You looked at it often and used it with care. You knew it was specifically meant for you, so to give it away would never cross your mind or make sense. You knew deep down that no one could ever use this gift correctly or appreciate its original meaning like you could.

I believe for many different reasons, but mostly because we do not understand just how important parenting is, that we’ve stopped caring for this unique and beautiful gift we have been given. We are gradually handing those reins over to schools, relatives, community programs, televisions, friends, neighbors, electronic devices, computers, the Internet, law officers, even churches. Although these all can be valuable helping aids for parents, they should never replace you in your role as a parent. You are the manager of your child’s upbringing. You are the one to whom God gave this child. You are the one with the essential gifts and talents to raise this child properly. You have been given this gift by God, in His infinite wisdom, and you are to be responsible for your child. Not anyone else. Protect this gift, take care of