Blog #2

Question: How should adults in 2012 "parent" their children? Lend your opinion on how this should be done. Think about the approach your parents/guardians have taken in raising you. Consider the parenting you've seen of others in your peer group (how your extended family parents your cousins, or how your friends parents deal with your friends), and finally, think about the parent you might want to be someday. How would you go about raising your children? What nonstandard would you hold them to (if any), what rules would you impose (if any)?

Parenting in today's society is much different from parenting in the past. In past times, parents would just let their kids roam free in the neighborhood and not care where they were as long as they were home for dinner. The worst thing they could do was get in a fight, which was sometimes considered a commendable thing, as long as you child won. And now today, with technology being as advanced as it is, parents have so much more to worry about than before. Some things they still have to worry about, and then there are some new things that they have to worry about. One of my parents biggest policy is being honest. My dad says "No matter what you do, I will always believe you. Until you break my trust, your word is the word I go by". I take that very seriously. And I plan on installing that into my parenting when I become a parent. Trust is. in my opinion, is the most important part of any relationship whether it be friend to friend, parent to child, or whoever. Trust is one policy of mine that cannot be broken or changed. Another thing I am a firm believer in as well as my parents, is the importance of always standing up for yourself and for your family. People will take advantage of you if you appear weak or do not stick up for yourself. No, you shouldn't walk around picking fights with people and doing so to prove that you are "tough". That's not being tough. It doesn't even have to involve fighting. Just being able to use your words to let a person know that what they are doing will not be tolerated by you is a skill and a nessesity that every parent should teach their children. Although I love my parents very much and I believe that everything they do is because they love me and that they want the best for me, I do not always agree with the decisions they make. I believe that sometime they make me do things around the house just to keep me busy, which I always do without complaint  Also, sometimes I believe that my brother and I are treated unfairly, whether it be in my favor or not. So since this bothers me, among other things they do, I know that when I am a parent, I will change some things when parenting my children. But a majority will be the lessons and values my parents taught me.