Parenting

This past week in class, we discussed parenting. Something we focused on a lot was disciplining children. While discussing this topic a memory that came to mind was when my sister was about five years old. Mckenna was out riding her bike and my dad told her it was time to bring her bike in the garage and come inside because it was getting dark. Mckenna ignored my father and kept riding her bike around our street. My father, starting to get frustrated then said, "If you don't bring your bike in right now then you won't be able to ride it tomorrow." Mckenna then said, "Thats okay, I wasn't planning on riding my bike anyways." That made my father a little angry so he then said she wouldn't be able to ride it for a week. Mckenna went on to say how she wasn't planning on riding it for the next week anyways. Me and my sister and my mom were all laughing while my father and Mckenna went back and forth giving a punishment and then saying it was okay because she didn't have any plans anyways. That's just a funny little story that I thought of this week. Something that we talked about in class is how when parents are disciplining their children, they should give them short consequences and allow their children to try again when the consequence is over. In the story I shared before it would have worked better if my dad already had discussed with Mckenna what the consequences of not bringing her bike in and coming inside would be before this ordeal happened. Then he could have taken her bike away for a couple of days and given it back to her and see if she had learned her lesson. I learned a lot of valuable things last week about parenting and I plan on using them when I become a parent myself.

Stay-At-Home Moms and Education

I guess I never realized there were people out there that thought it was a waste of an education to be a stay at home mom. I feel like when people say that it is demeaning to home makers. It is like saying what they do basically the average Joe with no education could do. I strongly disagree with that. There has been so much I have learned from my Mother and I know if she didn’t have an education, there would be things that I haven’t learned or didn’t know. I like the point that Jenet Jacob Erickson made in her article “A Woman’s Education is not Wasted in the Home” that a home is the best place an educated woman could be because they are teaching and raising the next generation. Children can learn so much from their parents and if they are well-educated, it gives the chance for parents to teach children what they know.

                There are many things that homemakers can do to grow and develop education-wise. Something that my mother does is read. She goes through books like crazy, and she learns from them. It was through her example that I gained a love for reading and learning. Something else mothers can do is learn new skills and teach them to their children. My mother learned how to sew and then she taught me. She gained a new skill, and through teaching me, I was able to learn and she was able to practice more.