Community Service Announcement From Paris

Your DD is awesome. Can I borrow her? Maybe she can solve my problem with DS lol?!

maybe she can teach my 4.5yr old DD1 that concept. Shouting or no shouting i still get the same response from her. Attitude, attitude aaaand more attitude, just for good measure :banghead:

All I've done is given her a platform. A voice. I think most kids feel the same way they are just unsure how to voice it. I can remember having inner dialogues like this as a child but being too scared to voice it for fear of backlash or just feeling like if I said anything I'd be accused of being disrespectful.

But in doing that it also made me responsible for my actions. So you have to be pretty thick skinned too. To be able to handle the fact you are told when you do something they don't like. We have the rule that if they do it respectfully its ok. But I'm also as forgiving of their emotional outbursts as they are of mine.

And I know there will be a lot of people who will be reading this and think I'm talking out my butt or I'm gloating again but let me tell you I'm not perfect. Not at all. But communication and emotional awareness is a huge part of who I am so it's a huge part of my parenting style. And only now as I watch my DD blossom into a teenager am I really seeing the impact it has had on her and how important it is. And like I said. I'm not perfect, my kids probably watch too much tv. I probably don't "play" with them enough. We don't take part in group sports and you won't find quinoa in my cupboard. But this is something I'm passionate about. And everyone has a passion. Doesn't make me perfect. Ok? I'm not. This stuff is important to me. And therefore it's important to my kids.

Wow, what a daughter you have Rouge! She sounds incredible, and so are you and your DH for raising her that way.

I'll be showing this to DH when I get home. DD is only just two and at the pushing boundaries stage. If we ask her not to empty her pencil case on to the floor she'll give a cheeky grin and do it faster (:lol). My response is to get on the floor with her and explain why we need to keep her pencils and crayons on the table or in the pencil case, and she gets down and helps me clean up. DH s response is to get annoyed and say in a rough voice "DD! I told you not to do that, why don't you listen?" Guess who's response works better? I think with him it's a patience thing, he's still learning :)

Yep Teeki it is harder for some dads to grasp. DH will openly admit he is still learning. But I always have patience with him because this is my world 90% of the time. And I'm surrounded by mothers and BellyBelly. I have a lot of support but he doesn't. He has work 70% of the time and he has me to impart new ways etc but that's it. So I think it takes them a little longer to grasp. But they get there ;)