January 2008 - Changing With Your Children

January always brings a sense of renewal. Although I am not a person of resolutions on the first, I do feel a need to start focusing on change in areas of life I am not satisfied with right now. This seems to also be a good time to work to improve relationships with our children.

Children grow, and as they do, they change. As parents we either keep treating them the same way we always have, causing friction and frustration for both of us, or we change with them and try to make the transitions easier for both of us. Change does not often come easy for parents. We finally think we have things figured out and… BAM! Our first born becomes a teenager or our youngest turns two and all the rules we cling to for sanity crumble.

One of the best ways we can prepare ourselves for these changes is research. There are books, parenting magazines and lots of online information available to us. Today, we have access to help and resources our parents could not have even dreamed of. Read what you can get your hands on and apply it to your situation if it is helpful -- or ignore it. Either way, learn all you can about the stages your children will (and I mean will, not might) go through as they grow up.

Another, even better, way to learn about these changes is to simply be an observant parent. Be involved in your child's life. If your child knows you are there to listen and share things with, they are much more likely to turn to you when they feel these changes coming on. Of course, toddlers demand you be involved because of the moment to moment care and supervision they require. But, as kids get older and become more self-sufficient, it gets easy for us to relax and rely on them to take care of themselves. Although this is one of the things we have to do to let them grow into the individuals they are meant to be, children still need to always know that we care, we support them and we will be available when they need us.

Let us not forget the wisdom of the ages. Our families can be a wealth of information. Just because times have changed does not mean dealing with children has changed all that much.

Sometimes listening to family stories (which many of us got our fill of over the holidays), we can glean some knowledge that may help us deal with changes going on today.

And, we were all kids, even though it may seem like it was long ago. If we can still try to see things through the child's eyes we might actually be able to answer that inevitable question, "What were you thinking?"

Our parents, their parents and their parent's parents, since the beginning of time, have been asking the same question.

There is no instruction manual for raising a child and one manual would not do the job anyway because children are all so very different. All we can do as parents is remember the awesome responsibility we accepted when we brought our children into this world and not miss the chance we have to nurture them into capable adults that will thrive in the society they will live in.

Lisa M. Sheldon is a wife, mother, author and Calhoun County resident. She has 12 years experience in early childhood education and her RBA from WVU-P. She is also a columnist and advertising director for The Calhoun Chronicle.