Weekend Reflections: Reflecting on Parenting
My new shoes
Parenting is never easy. It gets all so more complicated when you have more then one child and all of them have vast differences in their personality. Are they introvert or extrovert? What methods work best with each child? It is a constant trial and error situation as the kids personalities and preferences are evolving as they grow. There is no set answer to problems which we may face and it certainly has been extremely stressful at times trying to find a solution to the obstacles that come my way.
I have been reading quite a few parenting books the past month and the two books- Raising Boys by design
and Quiet Kids gave me quite a lot of insight into how to guide my kids.
HERO
Honor– adhering to truth, values, compassion, and principles beyond self
Enterprise- working at important things, whether they seem big or small
Responsibility– carrying important people and things throughout life.
Originality– being a dreamer, a thinker and an explorer in this world
HERO is what we should be focusing on for our kids. (especially boys)
To be able to understand our kids we should first ask ourselves these questions.
1. What are my kids original thoughts and doings?
2. Where does he/she shine and what are his/her gifts?
3. Am I stretching him creatively and imaginatively?
4. What steps could I take to strengthen his/her imagination and his/her critical thinking skills?
6. Am I letting him/her develop naturally or pushing him/her to do what I want him/her to do instead?
7. Which areas are your kids doing well while which areas are they failing behind in?
8. How are the challenges in their lives stimulating growth in each area?
9. How are we teaching our kids to be HEROS?
Teaching boys are different from teaching girls. Boys need to be constantly challenged to practice original thinking and creative action in honorable, enterprising and responsible ways. They have to be taught to be HEROES.
They will fail and falter many times. They will think something is original only to find out that it has been done before. And they will get hurt, emotionally and even physically, as they take risk towards originality. But without those risks and without testing grounds for their gifts, their GOD given heroic design will remain unfulfilled.
How are you teaching your boys to be HEROS?
