Where did you learn to be a dad?
Ru a plastercast of your own father? Or the total opposite?
Can say that my being a dad was shaped by what I think my parents did right and more importantly what I think they did wrong. It is all your experiences which shape your parenting skills. Like I do not believe in smacking my children and being overly cottonwoolly with them, but I do ensure that I read to them a lot....
Did an interesting exercise at a parenting course once...
Name one thing that your parents did right...and one thing they did wrong - how have these affected the way you parent your children?
Ok - I'll go first:
1. They taught us we could do/be anything we want - we just have to apply ourselves & make it happen
2. They moved us too many times during our school life...resulting in a rather chaotic educational experience (my father justified it as an education in 'life')
How has this affected my parenting? Well I try to re-enforce no.1 - our kids can be/do anything they want (application & motivation are the keys) and I have tried not to do no.2 (not entirely successful but we have made choices to keep them at schools outside catchment & do all the driving).
1. They impressed the importance of education on us
2. Enforced their view point on us
As young as they are (have not started school yet), I impress the importance of education on them and follow through with doing simple maths, English and explaining to all their questions.
I have discussions with my kids and if I have no reason for something accept their view of whether they want to agree with me or not, gives them a good streak of independance.
How do we keep up as dads? My son asked me why their used to be a "west germany' but not anymore.... of course he was talking football but how to you explain the Marshall Agreement, Berlin Wall, Glasnost etc - (whatever all that actually means....... blagging can only take you so far with my boys!!)
I did find an interesting fact that the average cloud weighs 1 tonne..... just the sort of thing every dad should know!
Now that cloud info is the kind of stuff i need right now.. My oldest keeps asking questions like "where does plastic come from" and "how are robots made" ...... i'm beginning to feel a little thick! π
My parents raised four of us on a budget and I think they did a grand job. So I know that I want to impress in my son that money isn't everything, and what's more you need to earn it and not expect it given to you.
I think my parents did extremely well raising me so I don't think I'll do much different from what they did.