I'm not too sure I want children of my own, but I do watch other families and think about how I would parent if I had children of my own. I am especially interested in helping children, reach their full potential, by removing the things that hinder them and providing what they need for healthy emotional, physical and intellectual development. Having a healthy self image and being kind to others is important to me. Children tend to copy the behavior of adult's they observe or repeat the things that are done to them whether it is good or bad, so my goal would to teach my children by example to respect and value other people and their contributions and care for those who are disadvantaged. I would want to be an authoritative parent, not permissive or authoritarian and definitely not the neglectful/uninvolved parent. Parental interest and involvement are crucial to children understanding that they are people of worth and value. I would want my children to not only have good emotional control but freedom of emotional expression. I would hug and hold and tell my children I love them more than my parents did. I would want my children to be more socially well adapted and be able to form close friendships than I am myself and would intentionally make time for interaction with their peers more than my own parents did, arranging play dates and likely send them to school rather than homeschooling. My own personal experience of physical punishment was positive and not associated with anger, so I would likely spank my own children. My own parents never were angry when they spanked us, my father rarely was angry and my mother if she was angry would scold us rather than spank us. So I associate anger with words rather than physical punishment. One of my goals would be to always be the adult in disagreements with my children, and to never use words that cut or tear down or demean, but only to bless and build up and instruct. In the beginning of the chapter Erikson's third developmental stage, initiative versus guilt is mentioned. I would want to recognize the initiative so that my child feels proud of what they discovered or accomplished even if they created a mess in doing it. I know if I ever have children of my own, I will make mistakes and won't always be the perfect parent, but when I mess up, I want to have the courage, be grown up enough, to say I'm sorry, what I did was wrong.