My friends, today we will discuss a special topic. One you are very familiar with. I hope that today you walk away with a smile instead of a fear of the future. If you do that then I have not accomplished my purpose for today.
Do you know about the terrible twos? What about the age of teenagers? These are the two milestone ages where I have heard parenting jokes the most. Everyone coming into Parenthood has their fears and their doubts. Everyone. We have talked about the importance of Marriage. Now we will talk about becoming and being Parents.
This is a time of your life where you do not need to fear. Yes it is a time of testing, and it is difficult. But there are wise words each passing day, it is so worth it. Each of you is a son or daughter of God. He loves you so much. We have Heavenly Parents who wish the best for us and want us to succeed. (See The Family A Proclamation to the World.) And just to mention quickly, what I like to do sometimes is to try to understand how the Lord feels when it comes to parenting. He has a lot of children. And he has a lot of different experiences. Whenever you are in doubt or don't know what to do, or need someone to talk to, you can always reach out to Heavenly Father, He will help you and grant you peace.
I once heard a story about a woman who had a brief conversation with her daughter. This woman talked about how her daughter was very anxious about meeting her child that was still in the womb at the time. The woman said to her daughter, "I know you want to meet your baby, but this is an exciting and wonderful time too, this is part of the journey." I believe those to be wise words.
Each stage that you are in with Parenthood is an exciting and wonderful time and each have something to teach us. With the coming of children, your marriage grows and is strengthened. There is an excitement when it comes to preparing for the arrival of your baby. Then the baby comes and from what I understand, a new adventure begins. Regardless of the number of children you have, you will experience each stage of their growth, and you will see the blessings in your life that will come.
Yes you will experience the toddler years, not the terrible twos, but the terrific ones. A great deal of how kids are when they are teenagers does come because of their growth, personal choices, likes and dislikes, but also because they have spent that time watching you. Teenagers seem like the hardest part of parenting. I for one put myself in this category. I do not know how I am going to be able to help my teenagers. It is a time when they are learning to become more independent, and start developing into the person they will become. But during this time even though it may not seem like it at times, is when they will need you the most. Please understand when problems come, it isn't supposed to be about focusing on their behavior, but on their needs. As we have discussed this week some of these needs are, but are not limited to: Contact and Belonging, Power, Withdrawal, and challenge. Each of these need to be met, but in the proper way. Michael Popkin the developer of Active Parenting talks about these needs. Each need there is an active approach and there is a mistaken approach. For example with challenge, the mistaken approach of the child would be to enter into undue avoidance, when the approach from you the parent should be to help your children have skill building abilities.
Here are a few more tips from this Active Parenting approach from Professor Popkin.
When it comes to their need of contact and belonging, the mistaken approach is under attention seeking. The parent approach should be to offer contact freely. When it comes to power the parent approach should be to teach your kids to contribute, but to also have what Professor Popkin calls Response-Ability, and this comes from making choices and knowing that they can't choose the consequences. I encourage you if you are interested to look more into the active parenting approach.
My friends, each milestone, each stage of the growth of children is a special one. Think about what you want to be able to accomplish as a parent. In the end we all hope to prepare them for the world they are going to enter, and when it is their time, to have their own family unit. It is not easy, but is so worth it.
It truly is an exciting and wonderful time.
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