Happy Home, Sanctuary For your Children
The epiphany
To be honest, when I had my first child I was not ready to be a parent and I did not plan it. I had not set out plans on how to take care of my children and what type of home I wanted to raise my family in. Now looking back, I was only just doing what I had experienced as a child. I parented the way my parents parented me. I was strict with my children and I never listened to my children and I always expected them to listen to me. I expected my daughter to be take responsibility for some things that her younger brother did, as my parents had done with me. The idea of what a home is to me, was based on children being sent to carry out chores and parents seemed to be the ones enjoying being at home.
My childhood experience
As a child if there was a difficult task, and no one else wanted to do it my mum would always assign it to me. If there were not enough treats for everyone, my mum would openly decide that I did not need the treat and all the other children would have the treats. It made me not to enjoy my life at home. When I got a place to attend boarding school at the age of 13 I was so happy. The boarding school I went to was the worst place I have ever lived, but I was happy there. I knew that every child did their fair share of chores, everyone had the same kind of food in the dining room. During the first few weeks, some children would cry at night for their parents and wanted to return home. I wondered why because I was having a good time. I felt I could be myself and not wonder what the next difficult chore I was going to be assigned when another child did not want to do it.
Boarding school became a holiday camp for me.
When I returned home after the first term, I had lost so much weight and my mum expressed that she wanted to move me to another school. However on seeing my academic report and the way I had matured, she left me there for another term. By the end of the second term, I had acclimatised to the boarding school life and my weight was better, I ended up being there for there up to 4 years. Boarding school was my respite, it became my holiday camp for me despite the horrible food and the dirty bathrooms and the lack of water.
My Parenting experience
It took a long time for me to realise that my older daughter was not enjoying her life at home. At the first opportunity, she left home and went to live away from home. This made me realise that I was repeating what my parents did with me. I then went on to ensure that my children enjoy their home. Allow your children to be children, they can do their chores without being shouted at and the chores have to be distributed fairly amongst the children. I always expected my daughter to do more chores than her young brother. I would blame her for the naughty things that the younger brother had done. She became the scapegoat for anything that the younger brother had done. We treated her as the 3rd parent and yet her younger brother had to take responsibility for his own decisions.
Let your children be children, don’t make them fill your gaps of parental responsibilities.
Treat your children as individuals, don’t allow your children to be parents before their age. Ensure you talk to them the way you want to be treated. Ensure that the home is were your children can be themselves. Do not make them feel like outsiders within the home. Be the go to person for your children, as they can end up going to other people whose values do not align with yours and finding other sanctuaries outside of the home.
How are you ensuring that your children are feeling loved within the home? How are you ensuring that your children are not seeking approval from outside the home? How are you being intentional with your parenting? Feel free to subscribe and comment in the comments section. if there are any topics you would like us to write about please feel free to add them to the comments section.
This is inspiring and true of most parents, we expect so much from our children. Positive parenting skills are essential in raising happy healthy n confident children, our children respond well if we don’t shout at them, but no we misplace our anger n anxiety on them only to v them confused and reaching out to other pple and places for approval and acceptance, the reason y most children elope at an early age esp in Africa just to go away from the nagging mom.
Thank you Ireen, I am glad the article has made you also to reflect on our parenting skills. I am sure the more we reflect, the better we find ways and means to support our children and listen and understand our children’s desires and needs.