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Throughout these early life experiences most persons
learn healthy and adaptive ways to raise children. However, for some, their own
upbringing may have included issues arising out of violence, abuse, neglect or
other forms of dysfunction that interfere with their own ability to parent
today.
Given poor experiences from one’s past, it can be a
challenge for some persons to parent in such a way so as not to re-create the
familiar. In other words, it can be difficult to parent differently from how you
were parented so what happened to you doesn’t happen to your children. Some
persons who have had poor childhood experiences are concerned about their
parenting skills. Even some persons with good childhood experiences have
concerns too.
The road to better parenting or parenting
differently from what you experienced begins with the process of self-discovery.
If in your past, you had experiences related to abuse, violence, neglect or
other forms of family dysfunction or you are just concerned, consider consulting
a social worker or finding books pertaining to your childhood experience to
learn how your early experiences can affect adult life and your parenting.
Talking with a social worker or reading books helps to hold a mirror to oneself
to more fully and deeply examine where we come from to determine who we are and
how we act.
With this deeper understanding of our self, we are
then better equipped to recognize how what we learned may affect our current
parenting behaviour. Then we are able to contrast our behaviour with what
children really need for healthy development. If there is a discrepancy between
what we now realize we are doing and what is actually best for children, there
are steps we can take to improve matters.
The next steps involve shedding the old patterns of
parenting behaviours in favour of adopting new parenting skills. Even though we
may not like our past experiences, they are familiar and in a sense,
comfortable. As such we need reminders, support and information both for what
not to do but also for help with what to do. Strategies to help be a better
parent can come in several different forms and include everything from reading
books, to notes on the refrigerator door, to counseling, to support groups, to
parenting classes.
Along the way, you may want to consider adopting a
new role model. If your role models weren’t healthy, think of someone else,
whose parenting abilities you admire. This could be a friend’s parent, a
fictional character from a book or even a television personality. The objective
here is to pick someone who you know parents well. Then, when you are stuck and
wonder what to do, you can think of what that person would do in your situation.
This is a nice way to take care of yourself and your children.
Choose your role model and how you want to parent to
be the kind of parent your child would choose.
Gary Direnfeld is a social
worker. Courts in Ontario, Canada, consider him an expert on child development,
parent-child relations, marital and family therapy, custody and access
recommendations, social work and an expert for the purpose of giving a critique
on a Section 112 (social work) report.
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