Being a mother is no joke. From the day we find out we are pregnant we no longer belong to oursleves. We now have to care and love for someone other than ourselves. Some basic rules for parenting that I like to follow...
~Pregnancy~
Please do not smoke! If you love your baby then just stop! If you don't have enough will power to stop that disgusting habit for the life of your child, then why are you even going to have a baby? You should start being a good parent befor the child is born. Don't wait till he/she is born and then it has to suffer because you had an urge for nicotine. Visit this page if you have doupts...Smoking If I can stop doing it-then so can you.
~Hitting~
There are so many other forms of discapline when it comes to your children. Don't be so quick to raise your hand. Your kids are people too, with the same rights as you. Just because you are bigger, it doesn't mean that you have the right to slap them around or spank their bums because they wont clean up their room, or because they touched something. Do you really want to teach your kids that the only way to teach them something is to hit them?? If a co-worker, or a friend had a tantrum, or isn't listning would you go over and spank them? I don't think so; So why is is OK to spank a child?
~Yelling~
We all raise our voice to our children once in a while. It's not fun, but someimes we can't help it. If you must raise your voice to your children make sure that you don't do it in front of other people. Yelling at kids in front of people humiliates them. It's not fun for parent or child! Remember that Children are people too. How would you like it if you were yelled at in front of people? Would you really want your children to feel like that? I'm not going to lie and say that I never yell at my son, but when I do I always make sure that he is not left feeling humiliated. Try counting to 10 befor yelling at them.
~Co-Sleeping~
The family bed is not for everyone, but it is for us. My son has his own bed in his own bedroom. He starts off the night in his own bed and he sleeps threw most night, but sometimes he wants to sleep with us and we don't often turn him away. We are mommy's at night just as much as we are during the day, and our kidlets need us just as much when they wake up.
Sleeping with your baby is a wonderful experience, but tragedies do happen. Most of them can be avoided by taking a few simple precautions.
Don't sleep with your baby if you've been drinking or taking tranquilizing drugs (even OTC drugs like Nyquil). You could roll onto your baby and suffocate him!
Don't use big soft quilts and pillows that the baby could sink into
Don't let baby sleep in a waterbed.
Don't dress baby very warmly because he will get a lot of heat from your body and may end up overheating
It's safer for baby to sleep between mother and the edge of the bed, rather than between mother and father. Fathers are more likely to roll onto the baby.
Use bolsters to keep baby from falling out of bed, or attach a guardrail, or push the bed firmly up against the wall. Make sure baby can't get wedged inbetween the bed and the wall. At the very least, put pillows on the floor next to the bed (not fluffy pillows)
~Play Time~
Play with your kids! It's the one of the most simple things you can do to make your children feel loved. I understand that once you stat haveing more kids it's harder to sit down and really play with them, but SAHM's with 1 child don't really have an excuse. Try sitting on the floor and playing cars with your son, or Help your daughter play Barbies. These are some of the things that my son and I do together
-I get down on the floor and play cars with him.
-We color together
-We play hide N seek
-We sing songs together
-We look at cars and play games on the internet
-We play puzzles
-We read lots of books, and do homework together.
Chores are also an easy way to play with your kids. What you can do depends on the age. My 4.5 year old helps me..
-Take clothes out of drier and puts them into hamper
-Pushes the swiffer around the house
-Puts his cars away befor bed
-Helps me push the vacum
-Loves to wash dishes
My son loves to help me clean. Lets just hope that he is the same way when he is a teenager ;-)
Thanks to the following site for the '10 ways to ruin a child' article
10 excellent ways to ruin a child
...read at your own risk
Teach him to be comforted by things rather than human beings. Make sure he has a good supply of pacifiers and stick one in his mouth every time he cries. If he still cries, put him in a swing or bouncy seat. If he keeps crying, he still hasn't gotten the message that you're unavailable, but don't worry -- he'll figure it out. Try getting one of those bears that duplicate the sound of a heartbeat; maybe he'll get attached to it and leave you alone. If not, sit him in front of the TV.
Let him learn as soon as possible that he's all alone in this cruel world. Following rule number one will help impart this information, but you can greatly enhance the learning experience by ignoring his cries as much as possible. This will help him understand that nobody else is interested in his well-being and that it's up to him to look out for himself.
Whatever you do, don't breastfeed. Bottles are much more convenient because you can prop them and go about your business. If you breastfeed, it'll make it easier for him to make selfish demands on your time.
Leave him with other people as much as you can, the more sitters you can find, the better. The less time you spend with him, the more you'll spoil his attempts to form a strong attachment with you or anyone else. Don't forget to follow rules one and two when you must spend time together.
Stick to a rigid feeding and sleeping schedule. This will enforce the lesson that his needs will be met at your convenience, not his.
Make your irritation strongly felt when you're forced to attend to him despite the fact that you're very busy. Let him know what an inconvenience it is and that you resent being interrupted. After all, you have much more important things to do, and he needs to understand that. Your job is to teach him that time is money.
Don't fail to express disgust about the dirty diapers and spitup. It's never too soon to start feeling inhibited about your body. You'll also be giving him a sense of how much you have to put up with on his behalf and how much he owes you.
Pressure and harrass him when he doesn't perform as well as your friends' kids. After all you do for him, the least he could do is make you look good. Make sure all your quality time is devoted to coaching and look for toys that will let him learn stuff on his own so that you don't have to be involved.
Yell at him and punish him severely when he does something wrong. The crueler you are, the more he'll fear you and you won't have to worry about him not doing what he's told and embarrassing you in public. Don't bother babyproofing the house -- if you scream and swat at him enough he'll learn to stay away from your stuff. If he keeps hurting himself, he'll learn not to be so foolishly incautious. Why protect him from reality?
Buy him lots of toys to show that you really do care about him, even though he's such an inconvenience. Teach him the value of wearing designer clothes and having bigger, better toys than anyone else. That can be his source of self-esteem.
If you follow all these rules closely, you are pretty much guaranteed to turn out a spoiled child. His self-esteem will be spoiled and also his ability to love and trust other people. If he makes it through the teen years without falling prey to drugs and alcohol, he'll be poised to compete in the race to accrue wealth and you won't have to worry about him being sidetracked by any concerns for others. With any luck, he'll grow up to be just like you and raise his own children according to the same principles. This will ensure that future generations have the benefit of living in a selfish, detached, materialistic world. Great for the economy!
