Parenting Advice

A friend recently interviewed me for one of her college classes and I found myself bearing testimony of eternal truths, so I wanted to record and share this.

Building close, nurturing relationships:

1) What do you think are the important principles related to building close, nurturing relationships with children? The Family: A Proclamation to the world teaches that "Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities." Live these as an individual AND as a family and the Lord will bless you in ALL you do.

2) Relative to building close relationships, what important lessons have you learned? Be willing to live in the moment more. Find ways to come closer to God and each other even through doing mundane things like housework and other stuff that just has to get done. Serve each other.

 


3) Are there specific lessons you learned about building close relationships that stem from challenges you had while raising children? I always thought that toddlers are manipulative in their emotions and irrational, but adults are too and sometimes even worse. Potty training taught me this and that you have to recognize your feelings and choose to act on them in constructive ways (even if you're feeling destructive.)

Communicating with children:

4) When it comes to communicating with children, what do you think are some of the mistakes parents often make? Not noticing their tone of voice and thinking the child is too young too understand.

5) What are the challenges you ran into relative to communicating with your children? Non verbal communication is less clear in its meaning but often more strongly felt; as a parent you have to be careful not to manipulate your child's feelings. Help them recognize their feelings and thus validate them even if and especially when their actions are not justified.

6) What are some of the most important lessons about communication you learned as a parent? A conversation is never a one way street. Also, ALWAYS involve God in the conversation. Using your body to force someone is never okay. (study the oath and covenant of the priesthood in D&C 84) for examples

7) Do you have any advice or counsel for me relative to these areas of parenting? Be willing to listen to the advice of others and strive to be worthy of the companionship of the Holy Ghost ALWAYS. School your feelings because the scripture is true that "a soft answer turneth away wrath."