May be not to the point of being woes, but parenting difficulties are abundant and seem to only increase in complexity as the children grow.
When children are babies and then toddlers, we have difficulty finding personal space, both physical and mental. They are our constant companions or always on our mind when we’re not with them. When they are more physically independent, we are often faced with new challenges of disciplining and getting them ready for the more rigorous social structures.
Overall our son is a sweet-tempered boy, but he does have the typical 5-year-old behaviors. When he ignores me, it makes me upset and hurt. When he defies me and challenges my requests, I feel really tired and confused sometimes. Sometimes I have to beg him to do what is good for him, simple things such as eating or drinking lots of water.
He started asking ‘Why’ a lot when we don’t want him to do something. I eventually got tired of lengthy explanations so reverted to quick, easy answers (sometimes untruthful). He eventually figured out some of my lies and started telling us not to tell lies. He then made up lies himself to defend naughty behaviors, such as there is another boy in the room who do things we ask him not to do.
As adults, sometimes we say unnice things to express our frustrations or to de-stress, such as swearing. My son would hear us swear and then repeat those unnice-sounding words. It’s funnily ironic! We enjoy swearing sometimes but don’t like it when those words are spoken by Jacob.
From my own experience, children model their parents’ behaviors more than listen to the parents’ instructions. Being a parents is as much about growing your personalities as growing your kids’. That is the hard part though. As adults we often feel that we are done growing; and as parents we often feel our maturity is complete.
I stumbled across some really helpful websites about parenting. These provide good guidance on the physical and psychological aspects of raising kids:
David and Lam 