Healthy Parenting Practices

Do you use coercion in your parenting? Coercion is the practice of  influencing someone to make the choice that you want them to make. How do we use this in our parenting? Because this type of parenting produces an immediate result, one may feel that it is working but what they might fail to realize is that this choice carries long term effects. Dr. Latham is the mastermind behind the active parenting series. He talks about how children that were raised by coercion often go on to rebel against their parents.I have known people that chose the path of rebellion to spite their parents. They were tired of being told what to do all the time, and wanted to make a point that they no longer had to do it their parent’s way. In a sense, the child felt that their agency and choices had been taken away, because they had always been told what to do. I felt touched by the story that Dr. Latham shared about the little boy with his parents in the airport. The little boy, just doing what little boys do, gets reprimanded because his father was annoyed. Yes, he stopped, but his actions expressed his feelings towards his father. It was creating a wedge in their relationship and he was only five. I also appreciated reading in our book that "good enough ordinary parents probably have the same effects on their children's development as culturally defined super parents." The quote by David A. Nelson goes on to say that good parenting comes from "having a good enough environment that supports children's development to become themselves."

This gives me hope that we aren’t expected to be some super, stupendous, fabulously, wonderful parent. I fall short, but if I try my best and seek to provide a warm and supportive home for my children, and include the Lord in my parenting it can be enough. The reading also provided many suggestions on how to overcome the tendency to use coercion in parenting, and what we should do as parents to provide an ideal home life. I’m going to touch on a few of my favorites:

1. Provide warmth and monitoring in the home. Children need to feel loved. They need to feel that someone cares for them and that they are taken care of. A sense of love can come from having clear and concise boundaries and knowing that someone is there to watch over their activities and that is also mindful of their actions and choices. In chapter 11 “Parenting in Gospel Context” David A. Nelson cites that “children will be most open to instructions when they feel loved and accepted by their parents.” We don’t need coercion we need to show love and acceptance to our children. In doing this, they will be more receptive to direction and guidance from parents. 
2. “Confrontive Discipline” Next, parents must trade in the desire to coerce and use what Baumrind calls “Confrontive Discipline.” Discipline is a necessary aspect of parenting. Children need correction from time to time in order to guide them back to the proper path. As parents, we should not shirk this responsibility, nor should we overdo it. Baumrind defines confrontive discipline as being “firm, direct, forceful, and consistent” in correcting. When there is a good balance between love, guidelines and correction, children will thrive.
3. The last area that I wanted to touch on is in parental control as well as self-control. Our kids learn from our actions. If we yell, they yell. If we are quick to anger chances are they will follow this example ect. ect.  I wanted to share another quote from our weekly reading that I felt was so powerful. President Gordon B. Hinckley said “As children grow through the years, their lives, in large measure, become an extension and a reflection of family teaching. If there is harshness, abuse, uncontrolled anger, disloyalty, the fruits will be certain and discernable, and in all likelihood they will be repeated in the generations that follow. If, on the other hand, there is forbearance, forgiveness, respect, consideration, kindness, mercy, and compassion, the fruits again will be discernible, and they will be eternally rewarding. They will be positive and sweet and wonderful. I speak to fathers and mothers everywhere with a plea to put harshness behind us, to bridle our anger, to lower our voices, and to deal with mercy and love and respect one toward another in our home.” As we teach and live a Christlike life, our children will most likely follow this example.

Joseph Smith said “I teach them correct principles and they govern themselves.” This is the fruit that I desire from my labors as a parent. I want to teach my children, in a loving way, what is right and then allow them to make their own choices and govern their own lives. This requires Christlike parenting, and allows no room for coercion.

Hawkins, A. J., Dollahite, D. C., & Draper, T. (2012). Successful marriages and families: Proclamation principles and research perspectives. Provo, UT: BYU Studies and School of Family Life, Brigham Young University.

"Marriage is Essential to God's Plan"

"Neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord” (1 Cor. 11:11

In the proclamation, we are taught that gender is important and that male and females have distinct and specific roles in the family, however, it also teaches that men and women were created to complement one another. Men and woman get married, and are expected to progress and grow together. Part of the growth that takes place begins when they start a family and make parenting decisions together. They can also progress and grow as they learn to lean upon each other, and in discussing how problems, goals, and choices will be made in their lives. Although the man is to preside over the home, he should also take into account his wife’s thoughts and feelings since she has been created to complement his strengths and weaknesses. Elder Bednar counseled “The man and the woman contribute differently, but equally to a oneness and a unity that can be achieved in no other way. The man completes and perfects the woman and the woman completes and perfects the man as they learn from and mutually strengthen and bless each other.”

The proclamation also states that “by divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families.” Righteous presiding, in my opinion, would include counseling with a spouse as well as with Heavenly Father before decisions are made. Men are also asked to love, and if presiding is done without including their wife, hurt feelings and frustrations may arise. The proclamation also states that “husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children.” To me, this means that parenting should be a team effort.  Together they are to provide care and love to their children that can come through setting and enforcing rules and boundaries, as well as through caring for and loving the children together. Elder Bednar shared “Just as the unique characteristics of both males and females contribute to the completeness of a marriage relationship, so those same characteristics are vital to the rearing, nurturing, and teaching of children.”

Each sex has been given gifts that are unique to them. For example, when I think about my husband and I, our relationship works so well because of our differences.  He's more quiet and thinks before he says things, and I'm less quiet and don't always think before I talk. I am a nurturer, and he nurtures, but also has a black and white perspective on things that helps to give me direction. As we are raising our children, I often think how grateful I am that we have different strengths.  There literally are times when I am so stumped on how to address an issue in the home, and when I explain it to my husband, he comes up with a perfect solution immediately. Sometimes it makes me crazy because I wonder why I was unable to think of it, but I recognize that this is the Lord's design. He created males and females in such a way that they can be a strong team. The lord has given us guidance through the proclamation in order to outline our family life, our marriages and to help us set up our homes in harmony with his teachings and purposes.  

Sorce: Marriage Is Essential to His Eternal Plan - Liahona June 2006 - liahona. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2016, from https://www.lds.org/liahona/2006/06/marriage-is-essential-to-his-eternal-plan?lang=eng

How Eternal Familes fit into the Plan of Salvation

The Proclamation to the Family teaches that "The Family is Central to the Creator's Plan." As Latter Day Saints we have been taught about the great plan of happiness, or the plan of salvation. This plan included life before the Earth (pre-exisistence), life on Earth, and our life when we leave this Earth. Understanding this plan and having this knowledge, is important because it shapes the choices that we make daily. If we choose to make correct choices, live worthy and keep our covenants, then we will be with our family when this life is over. What a powerful blessing! We can be with our families forever.

 Families are also central to the plan because through fulfilling our duty to be a father or a mother, we learn to become more like our father in Heaven. I can testify to this principle. When I was pregnant with my second baby, I was so concerned about how I was going to love my new baby as much as my five year old son. I could not understand the concept of being able to love two children the same. I had been with Shaun (my oldest) for five years. I was attached and bonded to him, and could not imagine there being room for me to love someone else as much. I agonized over this for many months and as my pregnancy drew to the end, I was a nervous wreck. Then,through the spirit, I was taught a valuable lesson. As I thought about my heavenly parents, I realized that the attribute of love is a divinely given gift. To me, this meant that I could love just as my heavenly parents loved. They loved divinely, loved more than only me, and I had never felt less love from my father in heaven because he loved others too. I had always felt close to him, and  knew that he was there for me. I could do the same for my children! I had been given the divine ability to love. I can happily report that my second son was born, and I felt endless love for him. There was also plenty of room left in my heart for Shaun as well, and as my third child was born there was not a shortage of love. It was through this experience, as well as many others throughout my life, that I have learned to become more like my Heavenly Father. It is through rearing children that some of my most treasured experiences and god-given knowledge has come. I learn to be  more like him, as I appreciate and follow the Plan of Salvation.