Topic : Your Parenting Style

Hi there,

I'm a single mom of a 10 year old and am going thru the same situation as you.  At school my son is an Angel,  he respects his teachers etc...,  The minute he comes thru the door havoc starts.  It will begin in the morning waking up for school.  Any reason to raise his voice towards me will do.  I am also drained.  Physically, mentally, morally.....I love my son so much and I remember when he was so sweet.  I know I am not consistent with punishment cause he will resort to yelling at the top of his lungs (i live in an apartment complex)  which bothers my neighboors and makes me very embarrased.  Or he will physically his me.  I am 5"2 107 pounds and he weights about 100 pounds and is approx. 5 ft. 

I try to deal with it day by day,  there are some good and I find if you get the right resources we will finally find a solution.  GOOD LUCK... KEEP IN TOUCH

I have no idea what to do! I recently gave birth to a beautiful newborn girl ( and also recently married) and me and my husband have been arguing over the fact that I am very overprotective with my daughter even when it comes to him.

When I gave birth, i had the luxury of having my mother came and stay with us for a month to help me adjust with having a newborn in the house. I took a maternity leave of three months to take of the baby especially since I was breastfeeding. My mom assisted with the chores aroudn the house i.e cooking, some cleaning,etc. My husband also assisted but for the most part he was working the third shift ( 11pm-7am) leaving him very tired because he has never worked this shift before, so his time at home was left getting some sleep. Nevertheless, since I was breastfeeding, I was for the most part taking care of the baby because she was getting her nourishment from me and I obviously was the one with more time on my hands. My mom left after a month and reality set in for the both of us. I for the most part do not leave the house because my husband says its not safe to take the baby out blah, blah, blah. [Side note: I had also spent a large part of my pregnancy working full-time/finishing off my master's full time from sept to dec, i gave birth  in february]

Anyways, sorry for jumping around, I have grown accoustomed to the way I have handled my daughter since she was born. I have learned that she is a very good baby and only cries when she needs something, so for the most part when she cries, I pick her up to see if she is hungry or wet and attempt to calm her down any chance I can get because there is no reason to let her crying get out of hand if I believe that I have solved her want i.e food , wet diaper. I feel like over the months I have learned what my daughter wants and needs and even figured out what her different  cries me. i feel like at this point in her development i know her best. i feel she takes to me at times more than her father. My husband feels like i am too overprotective of her, especially when she is with him.There may be some truth to this statement only because my husband believes by me pampering her, calming her down when she cries, always wanting to see how she is doing or the reason behind why she is crying is making her a spoiled baby. He believes by not rocking her when she cries, not calming her down when she cries to be changed or for whatever reason is creating a STRONG-MINDED baby, who wil nto throw tantrums, learn to stop crying on their own with out being rocked or talked to. He even wants to give her a lil tap on the bum if she cries a little bit. He says as long as he picks her up, the baby should know to stop crying because I am not ignoring her. I don't believe in that.  I believe that my version of parenting, in soothing her talking with her calms her down quicker than just standing there and wait for her to calm down on her own. I often walk in as he changes her diaper to find that her crying s at an ultimate peak to the point that her noise is running. When I deal with her and I am home with her by myself she cries but not to the point that her noise is running and she's ready to have a panic attack. In addition, I guess I often make a comment  like " Well she never does that with me". My husband has mentioned that he does not like that comment because it makes he pissed off , but I feel like sometimes the manner in which he handles her is not appropriate because I see her reaction to him. It is not always the case, but for instance he has this thing he does where he gives me and our daughter sniffs instead kisses. That is his way of showing love. It often annoys me but he says he does it for his own satisfaction. often times it is pretty rough and rubs his beard on our daughter and she immediately cries. I know my daughter doesn't like it because she starts to cry or even puts her hands up and does not lean on him for support as he holds her.

I dont think at this age in particular she needs to be disciplined. It is understandable if she is crawling or walking and is getting into a lil trouble,but I don't believe in disciplining a child this early ( especially not at two months). I believe at such an early age the baby is learning trust and by me soothing her and trying to calm her down is helping her build that trust.  please help..am i doing something wrong....our marriage is on the rocks...b/c this is a  constant argument

i think you should certainly pick your daughter up to comfort her when she cries, or to take care of her. you can not pamper a baby too much untill they are 6 months old. i don't know what is the real line, but that is way under it. babys can't make the link i'm crying, so mommy picks me up yet. they cannot be disciplined yet. if you don't pick her up, she'll think i'm hungry!!!! or whatever. and she is left alone. my advice, always pick your baby up, and take care of her, but make sure that you don't do it anymore, if she get's the fact that if she cries, she gets picked up. you should let your husband have is own things with your baby, and she won't die if she has to wait  minute, but make sure he isn't letting her wait half an hour. about him rubbing his beard in her face, of course she doesn't like it, it hurts!! baby skin, is very thin and soft, so they are way more sensitive. try getting him to rub his beard over a soft place of his own skin, and he'll know it isn't nice.

    My son is almost 8 months old and he to has started acting out with tantrums.  He also throws his head or upper body backwards when you are not expecting it which has led to his head hitting the floor.  Changing the diaper and doing the ole "flip over" deal in which in order to change that diaper you need the help of a second person.  I have witnessed him getting mad and doing what could be seen as angry/frustrated behavior, for example he will give out a scream which sounds angry, and his arms will move about as if hes frustrated or mad, I was putting it off as maybe hes teething but I should probably consider the probability that he is expressing himself,  and if this is the case,  he needs to learn now while he is still little that this is not an appropriate way of expressing oneself.  So after reading a reply from one reader they suggested ignoring the behavior completely and this would show that basically acting this way will get no response from anyone so they will stop.  I am going to give it a try

HI, I am currently trying to get a happier life with my children, unfortunately I have the head knowledge but my heart is not working with knowledge.   I have 3 children from my first marriage which was very disfunctional, I did abandon my children for their lives for a period of years from doing drugs with their father to living on my own and letting their father raise them for a while.  This created alot of scares on the children and guilt on me.  I have tried and believe I have dealt witth the guilt but I keep going backwards when the children ask me for  money.  I want to help but everytime I do it gets worse and is never appreciated.  My oldest daughter who works for me as my husband and I own a business.  Serena runs it and both my husband and I work at full time jobs. She does a great job and has made the business what it is today.  In saying that she lives with a man that is from Grenada does not work as we can see but I have tried to ignore it.  He is not a legal immigrant and we tried to say something and were told it is none of our business and he has applied that is over 6 years this has been going on.  Serena told me last year she married him so I could not deport him which I was not going to do anyway.  Some say I should report him to the authorities other say stay out of it she will only hate you.  She is in a lot of debt all in her name he has nothing in his name.  She has no money saved I pay her a very good wage and she is always broke.  She now wants me to co-sign for a loan for a new car to help her and when I said I had to speak to my husband her step dad she got angyr and said this should be just me saying yes.  I know she is just wanting the car and is not looking at the real picture. I had told her we would talk about it and she said fine but do not tell us how to run our lifes or spend money etc.  We suggested that we would give her an older car with no payments and then she could pay off her debts and when she can afford it she can get her own loan to buy this car.  She said I am being unfair and should help her but she is not surprised as I have not helped her ever.  I just need to know what to say at this point so she can try to understand that it is not the right thing for us to co-sign a loan when she is already in fiancial trouble and this car would be a 37,000.00 loan and even though she is paying for it, it is still on our credit profile until she can afford to take us of.  WE do have alot of other issues in our family but this one I need help on right now.

Maggi

I appreciate your feed back I will do this and see what happens.

My biggest problem is I do show my feelings right away. She called me just after I wrote for help and told me everybody told her they can't believe I will not help her.

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Maggi

Ok, Here's the scoop. I am a 32 yr. old mother of three. I have a 9 yr old boy. and two girls, 7 and 6 yr olds.I had a very late start at the ""parenting thing"" because I wasn't ready to grow up. I wasn't ready to accept that having a child ment I had to grow up.

I am realizing that your children are the most important thing in your life. That thier future depends, no not depends, has a big part to do with how they are raised and I don't want to screw it up.

Since there was a big part of thier life where i didn't make the best choices , now, My children are wild. I don't know how to get that under control.

Just the other day, (for example, )My 6 yr old poured a whole bottle of conditioner out on the bathroom floor. When i asked her why she did this, She said, " she wanted to go ice skating"

I explained to her that this is not how "big" girls act. these are problems that 3 and 4 yr olds have. Why is my 6 yr old doing this?

We have tryed grounding, spanking, not spanking, talking, counting, time-out, corners, takin toys away,.

I have read almost every parent book out there. but it's like my kids were the 1% of the kids that all of these books didn't work on.

I am open to any and all ideas. Give em to me..............

Thank you.