What I've learned as a parent (part 2)

I had a robust plan to share my feelings about my experience as a parent before being a parent took precedence the past few days. As a result, I've been unable to write. Isaiah has been sick a lot this month and spent the night in the hospital with pneumonia and RSV. Poor little guy. Needless to say, I haven't found much time to write in this blog.

I've had a lot of other ideas lately, so this will be the final entry in this short blog series. I have learned a lot as a parent, though. As you can see with this post, sometimes life can be unpredictable. I still want to share two ideas with you. 1.) Children are smart, and 2.) they're not as smart as we'd like them to be sometimes.

Children are smart. This is a fact. They're brains are like sponges and absorb an abundance of information daily. As infants, they're just beginning to understand the world and they make large gains each day. They can sense when you're happy, mad or scared and their reactions are often influenced by your reactions.

This has become very important for me to understand and live with. I think it's important to remember that your child is always looking to you for your guidance. They're watching what you say, how you respond to situations and how you treat other people. These behaviors are learned at a very young age.

I see parents harbor ill feelings towards others and believe their child doesn't know, but they sense your feelings. Be careful, you're demonstrating to someone very precious how to live the rest of their life.

Wrestling parents need to heed this advice. Yelling at an official sets a bad example, yelling at your child because he doesn't perform like you'd like sets the worst example (it leads to performance-based acceptance which is not the topic today).

They are smart little people, but not as smart as we think they should be at times. I recall the progression that I learned math as being very sequential. When I finally started addition and subtraction I needed to "master" it before I took on multiplication and division. Additionally, I memorized the time tables before I tackled long division. If I didn't have a grasp on these basics, I wouldn't have been able to do algebra and so-on. Not only do we follow simple progressions in the learning process, our minds develop at different rates and young children don't have the capacity to solve complex problems without the necessary critical thinking tools. This takes time as children grow.

This is similar when it comes to physical development. Kids can't complete complex movements without the basics...you need to walk before you run, right? Many parents forget this and I see, first hand, parents pushing their children to do things they're not ready for and getting upset when they don't see the results they're hoping for. Be patient and allow your child to develop at the appropriate rate. Kindergartners don't have categories in their mind to understand negative numbers, so we can't expect them to start on calculus.

Remember, love your children. If you love them, you'll encourage them to learn, but won't push them to do something they're not ready for. Love is not self-serving. Love is about the other, and this time it's about your child.