Originally posted by Kate
I agree, the disciplining is practically a non-issue when the child gets plenty of love and attention. My only regret is that I had to work and be away from home most part of the day.
Don’t beat yourself up about that Kate. It may not be the best but quality time and the child knowing you are doing the best you can, overcome almost any obstacle. My Mother ran off with someone else when I was five. My Dad, who could have just as easily left me in the care of my Mother who had other interest, fought hard to keep me with him at a time when Fathers just did not ever get children in that situation. I was often left with aunts and friends while Dad worked hard to provide. But he was the one and only stable thing in my life for years. He was rough, crude, and sometimes violent with people but his love for me was never in question. He is gone now but he will always be my hero. He has been gone a long time but even so the tears still flow when I talk of him because I realize the tremendous sacrifices he made for me. I think of my God’s love for me in very similar ways that I think of my Dad’s love for me.
And it actually leads right into something I was thinking about when I woke up this morning. I am telling you this knowing you are obviously an intelligent and caring person that will evaluate what I say and use it or not as you see fit.
My Dad was raised in a large and poor family. My Granddad would be considered a child abuser today but in the backwoods hills of Tennessee his style of punishment was considered normal. By the time my Dad was six, his job was to get up at 5 every morning and start the fire in the fireplace. He told me he would get everything ready the night before so when he woke up, all he had to do was run in the room, pile the wood on the fireplace, and get a bit of fire from the kitchen stove which was hot all the time. I tell you this because as a result of this and many other experiences in his life, he developed a very strong work ethic and learned to never give up on anything.
Because of the part I related above, when I became a teenager Dad feared I might leave and go to live with my Mother. It actually never crossed my mind but he was fearful of that. He was very strict and when he said do something there was no questioning his authority. But as a result of that fear he had, as I got older he would indulge me too much. For instance once when I was about 15, I decided to rebuild an old car to learn how to work on cars. He bought an old car for $50 and I started work. I got the motor out and then never worked on it again. He finally hauled it off to the junkyard. As a result, I never learned that stick-to-it-ness that he had all his life. Only in math where I excelled did I develop that quality of never giving up.
In hindsight as I thought on all these things and realized what had happened in my life, I became determined not to pass that trait on to my children. Therefore I was and am careful to evaluate what they start. I always had a talk with them before they started something. If the decision were made to start it, we would set some goals to accomplish. It may be that they would try it for 3 months and then decide if they wanted to continue. But they had to accomplish that goal without giving up. Right now my daughter is in several things. Dance, gymnastics, soccer, piano and then of course school and church. She is the most social person I have ever met and wants to be in even more. However she excels at soccer. Therefore the understanding is that she can drop anything except soccer and piano at the end of the session. She has soccer practice twice a week, a game on Saturday and soccer camp on Sunday afternoon. She will sometimes complain about that but I am very firm about not even letting it become an issue. And of course once she gets to the field she always enjoys it.
I pass this along to you because it has worked for me. My two grown children do not have this defect that I have. They are both very tenacious and never quit at anything. So use it as you see fit. Sorry about the length but I thought it was important.
Hank