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.

Roots & Wings

"What now?" my friend's parents asked as they set down two baby carriers (one holding my friend, the other, her twin brother). I love hearing parents recall the days when they themselves were just figuring out adult life. My friend's mom told us that nothing really prepares you for being a first-time parent. It's a learn-as you go process. But one things for certain--the day she and her husband brought their twins home their world shifted. She kept asking herself, "WHO gave us permission to do this [parenting]?!" It is an immense responsibility to take care of a child. You have an influence in shaping who that child will become. 

"Children's beliefs about their worth are connected to parental confirmation, especially when parents remind their children of their positive accomplishments"  (Reese et al., 2007). As a young adult, I still identify with this statement. At graduation I decorated my cap with sparkly silver letters that spelled out, "Thanks mom and dad for roots and wings." My parents have given me VERY deep roots. And by this I mean I feel connected to my family and where I came from. My parents have instilled values in me which I will probably have for the rest of this life. I just started "growing out my wings" this year, though. I realized that even though I'm independent in many ways, I still have this constant need to seek approval from my parents (specifically my mom). At heart, I'm still that 3-year-old girl who says "Look what I did mom! Aren't you proud of me?" This frustrates me because I feel this need for approval extends to other areas of my life... Now that I'm aware of it, however, I'm making a conscious effort to look internally rather than externally for approval. No matter where I end up in life, I'll always be grateful for my parents. And, I'm learning to value their opinions without basing my decisions on their approval.

Chapter 10

Chapter 10 I learned a lot about parenting styles, which collected my interest because of my observations of both my parents. Reading this chapter I learned a lot about my parents, sibling and myself. I learned that the parenting styles that are expressed effect children whne they are young and also into their adult years. The three most parenting styles I was drawn to the most are: authoritatian, permissive and authoritative parenting. Why? because these are the parenting styles I see in my parentings. Authoritarian- an approach to child rearing that is characterized by high behavioral standards, strict punishment of misconduct, and a little communication. Next, permissive parenting is an approach to child rearing that is characterized by nuturance and communication but little discipline, guidance, or control. Authoritative parenting is an approach to child rearing in which the parents set limits but listen to the child and are flexible. I see both authoritatrian and permissive in my mother and authoritative in my father. I learned that since my father was authoritative, that this leads to my anxiety and my low confidence as a child and leading into my future. I learned that since I spend a lot of my time with my mother other than my father I am more a happy person and very sociable because of her authoritarian style.

Chapter 10

Emotional regulation is when you are able to control the emotions you are feeling without for lack of better word become “outgoing”. To me this becomes very important almost immediately in life till the day you die because people don’t really want to be around those who lose their mind simply. The initiative versus guilt came as a very interesting concept I really had never heard of or thought about. Thinking how at such a young age children become able to recognize when they need to be initiative and do it for their parents to look upon them as if they accomplished something rather significant. The guilt sets in when the child does something that the parent is not particularly happy/content with. As said in the book and when I think about it in life I can see how we understand how we recognize those things frowned upon as guilt and making it thus likely to not be a repeat offender of certain actions.

            Pride in children like we all had experienced while growing up is something that even now you have those almost pessimistic thoughts saying you cant do something, when you are that age all you do is think of yourself as a winner which is something I wish we could all honestly hold onto without having anything affect it.

            Intrinsic motivation is something that inside of us almost no matter how weird, odd, stupid, normal, etc. that we all do to keep ourselves content or happy with who we are and helps us with our own self perception. Extrinsic motivation is what we all try to achieve by being a part of society such as doing things that will make somebody else comment on that makes us feel good or have it be rewarding.

Chapter 10

I have always found the topic of becoming a boy and girl interesting. There is a big difference between sex and gender. Sex is the biological difference between males and females, in organs, hormones, and body type. Gender is the differences in the roles and behavior of males and females that are prescribed by the culture. In North America, a child recognizes their differences between sex and gender. For example in the book they use an example of if a 5 year old boy has to decide between pink shoes and walking barefoot the little boy would rather walk barefoot. Our culture plays a huge part in what we think is socially acceptable and what is not. We all know that pink is associated with pink and boys are associated with boy. Girls play with barbies and play dress up, while boys play with cars and wrestle with each other. If the roles were reversed and boys were the ones that played with barbies and girls who were the ones that wrestled our culture would think it's a little weird. I think at a younger age it's not that significant, for example if a toddler puts on a dress we think its funny and cute. Once that children becomes 5 or so, it becomes socially awkward. In the past I would definitely say it was more an issue than it is now.

Chapter 10

The topic of becoming boys and girls is what I'd like to comment on this week. I've always known the difference between sex and gender. I never realized how young people start to discriminate between different genders though. Of course I realized that as a young boy or girl they understand that girls do not have a penis and that boys do. This is sex discrimination though. However, I didn't know that as young as 2 years old a child applies gender labels such as "lady" and "man". They also distinguish between nurses and police officers as different genders based solely on their role in society. I'm not sure this is a good thing. I think as young children, they should be able to view everyone as "equal" I guess. "Equal" meaning that a man or woman can do any job. Children develop stereotypes so early in life. It is sad to think this way. If children didn't think this way so early in life, more people would be open about different sexualities later in life.

Chapter 10

I found the section about media to be something I relate to from the chapter. It shows evidence that not all television and other forms of media are bad, they can be educational when the lessons are reinforced by parents and there is interaction between the parents, children and media. There is also evidence that it greatly reduces the amount of interaction because parents are usually more concerned with other aspects of a healthy lifestyle, and they themselves are engaged with media and electronics. I related to this because I found that I interact less when my phone is in use or the television is on. Even though we don't have cable, we have Netflix, and that could be even worse than having cable. I find I am less productive throughout the day when I am on social media, and there is less quality time spent with my husband because we are both distracted.