Electronics and parenting. We do not have video games in our home and never will, We do not have cable tv. We do not play computer games. We watch movies, but not everyday. Instead, we live on five acreas, we play outside, we read books, we craft. One thing I have noticed, is my children are creative. Electronics do the thinking for people, that is why they aren’t a big thing in our home. I also think one problem with our society, is our dependance on electronics for entertainment.

Dinnertime. How is dinner time done in your house and why? We all help prepare, set the table, clean up, and yes, we eat together, no fast food, processed food… we make about everything homemade. This is important.

Parents time with kids. As a parent, you just do your best. I homeschool, so I spend most of the time, but my husband is good at spending time as well. It’s hard to have that bonding time when you have a lot of kids, but we are a relatively happy family and make do, it all works out in the end, as long as you make the effort.

Good cop/ bad cop. My children listen more to dad, so sometimes we get dad involved. No biggie, we are a partnership, the kids know that, we stick by one another in our parenting

Housekeeping vs. Quality time. I have five kids like I said, and a baby due in 6 weeks, and I homeschool, my house is not a filthy pigsty, sure, it gets cluttered, it’s never “good enough” for me. But it isn’t a place where we are grossed out. It’s important that children learn to work, and we all do chores everyday. It’s a lot of work to keep this house running, so we try to stay on top of it, we also do a lot of quality time as well, this is because we all do the cleaning and we do it daily so it doesn’t get too out of hand. I think it’s important that a home be somewhat decent to live in, it makes it happier. And when we go to a dirty house, my kids thank me for wanting to keep ours clean.

I think you just have to find what works for you, and your family 🙂 oh, found your blog through hotbelly mama if you are wondering- was waiting for a phone call so this gave me something to do!

1) We took Wynnie EVERYWHERE. Restaurants, airplanes, vacations, EVERYWHERE. She just had that personality. We take Mack NOWHERE. After the first 2 times I got up and walked out of a restaurant with him crying (so he wouldn’t bother other patrons) and missed my own meal, we stopped going out to eat. IF we go out (like ONCE a year), we go early afternoon when he’s in a decent mood and freshly napped. We only go to a very family friendly restaurant that’s quick and close to home. That is just his personality. Before I had 2 so polar opposite kids, I’d have said it was how the kids are raised. Nosiree! It’s how they come. You can fight it, or work with it. Fighting it will make you go insane. Be open to changing your expectations.

2) This is a good one! Wynnie is 5 1/2. When she’s sick, I move a portable DVD player into her room. I did this out of selfishness when she had rotavirus and threw up for 10 solid days. I sat with her for the first 5 straight days, on the 6th night I gave her a dvd to watch between bouts of vomiting so I could get some sleep. The dvd player comes out when she’s not ill (OR if I’m sick and I just need to get to bed at 5pm, I’ll put it in her room so she can be safely confined to one place while I’m sick–again, it’s purely selfish). BUT we just got her a Leapster for stopping sucking her thumb. It was her Grand Prize. It helps her spell and count and do some math. She freakin’ loves it. On nights when she’s good, I’ll let her take it to bed. I know she’s up around 6am and I don’t want to hear from her until 7, so she’ll play it.

3)This is tough in our house with Mr H being gone most evenings. We don’t eat in the big diningroom, but I found that both my kids were more receptive to eating if they’d sit at the bar in a seat and eat. I often times sit right next to them, and sometimes I’m up running around getting more of this or that. Breakfast is (yes, I’ll go to hell for this!) in front of PBS at the coffee table while I run around getting everybody ready to take Wynnie to preschool. Lunch is usually at the coffee table. Dinner is seated at the bar.

4)We don’t parent equally. My husband is gone a lot. That’s how it is. BUT he’s a really great dad and bonded instantly with Wynnie (as in OH MY GOD watch a man when his daughter is born and you’ll die how heart breaking it is). My kids play the “I want Daddy!” card when he’s gone, but when I’m out they “want Mommy!” It’ll always feel like they want whomever isn’t home.

5)We somehow have come to an unspoken “if you see me getting into trouble back me up” rule. It’s rarely good cop/bad cop. SOMETIMES (and it’s because I’m the one who is here all the time and I may have created a rule that Daddy just doesn’t know about) I’ll step in and let Daddy know that we’ve changed something and that he’s going by the old rule, but now we have a new one. We haven’t had a problem yet of running over each other’s authority. We back each other up–then hash it out later if we need to, so the kids don’t see our disagreement.

6)I’ve mentioned before that I vacuum EVERY DAY. Not because I’m a clean freak, but because I realized one day as Wynnie was on the floor (maybe 7 or 8 months old) that she and her little jammies were covered COVERED in dog hair. It was so disgusting and the guilt killed me. This sweet baby covered in hair! So, since then, I make a very concerted effort to keep the pet hair cleaned. The dishes are washed every other day when Mr H is gone. The tv needs to be dusted, the furniture needs to be dusted… I don’t care. I have a wool duster I get out once a week and go over what I can see. I deep clean when I get the chance. To me, it’s about the kids. They won’t remember the counter tops needing to be wiped, or the pink ring in the toilet… they’ll remember the bike ride you went on, or the time at the park. I try to keep my house so that I won’t be completely mortified if a neighbor stops by, but I’ve stopped being a neat freak because I can only control so much in a few hours a day.

You may have deep seated notions of how you want to parent, or think of how you were parented and want to do things differently….but be open to changing those notions as time goes by. You might find that 5 or 6 years down the road you understand WHY your mom did things the way she did and it worked.

Blogging is great, because there are so many of us who have lived it before and are willing to share our experiences so you can weigh differing opinions.

You’re going to be so great!

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Then expect of them.

Then be consistent with discipline and praise.

Seek advice.

Be FLEXIBLE.

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