The Rodeo of parenting

The thing that I would like to start with is, that parenting is not always what we imagine it to be. There will be things that we are not expecting like how many tantrums a four year can throw. I am not yet a parent but I have been told that it is never what you fully expect, and to always remember that there are good and bed days. Be careful not to judge other parents when you are having a good day and they may be having one of the worst days of their week. We never have a full picture of what is going on in someones life, so be careful to judge. My mom has a phrase that she says that is you are always the perfect parent until you become a parent.
In the past the influence of parenting for children reach out in the family, from parents aunts , uncles, then grandparents. In today's world we are seeing less of that kind of parenting and more Daycare, Nannying acting as parents for children. Personally there are things about both that I would not have liked about apart of either of those situations as a child, and some will say that it doesn't make any difference because kids don't know any better, but there are needs that a child has that should be met and even if they don't fully recognize that is what is going on, they still needs those met. Another benefit of having the parents in the home is the security that it gives the children, and it gives the kids confidence in themselves and others. The kids also get a taste of inter generational learning, because their parents are going to teach them what their parents taught them and they taught what their parents taught them and so forth. However the overall benefits for being in the home with your children far out weigh the other options. When you have both parents in the home you learn the nurture and warmth from your mother but then you learn firm boundaries from your father, and together that parenting style works like a well oiled machine.I know that for me personally having both of my parents in the house helped me to learn lessons that i didn't even really notice i was learning until later, such as how men should treat women, my dad was an awesome example of how to treat my mom and how she is special to him. I loved watching them play and talk in the kitchen and how i would dream about having that one day. Luckily i was able to find someone who works hard at a relationship, and know how to play but also how to make sure everyone is taken care of, he reminds me of my dad in that way. I am grateful for the example of my father and mother showing me what a healthy family unit can look like, and I am grateful for my fiancee who has the same goals in mind.
Even though there are different parenting styles, there are five universal needs that a child should have met. 1. Contact and belonging that goes with physical contact, but also eye contact, and conversational contact show your children that you are listening to them, and help them feel that what they are saying is valuable. 2. The need for power, professionals have called this giving children age appropriate decisions to make, help them feel like a big kid by letting the three year old pick out what he wants to wear for the day or what they want to eat for lunch. 3. The need for protection, this is the need to feel  needed. Kids need to feel that they are apart of the family team. 4. Withdrawal the recognition that it is "ok"to withdraw ourselves from hard work take a break and then get back at it. we tell ourselves the lie that we can handle doing everything at once and that is just impossible and so teaching children how to manage time is much more valuable then having them work consistently. 5. Challenge, we naturally give this one to ourselves, we set up challenges to take them and conquer them for the feeling of accomplishment, so the main thing with children is to recognize when they accomplish something that they have been working at. All of these things are very important to our children and their needs, so let us if we are parents or when we become parents pay attention to our kids and show them the love that we feel for them. And have a little fun with it!

Father's and Finances

We all have a father, whether that father is present in our lives or not we have a father. The worlds view of the world is that fathers are not necessary. The Media portrays them as idiots who don't know what is going on in his family life and his only responsibility is to make money and bring home the bacon. I beg the Question, what does father mean to you. Each individual has a different relationship with our father. Whether it be with your earthly father or your heavenly father.Our fathers have a strong influence on us as their children they provide and preside over the regular day to day things which makes them wonderful. One of the ways media twists that fathers are not important is that they feed to the fathers that they aren't important, well if you are a father than i want you to realize how important you are to your wife and your kids, or to your future wife and future children. Both sons and daughters learn something different from their fathers. For example sons learn what a man looks like, how he should treat other people but especially how he should treat women, he also learns hard work and dedication through the father. A daughter is taught by her father how she should be treated and what types of things make a boy a man, she will also be able to see what qualities she wants to have in a future husband. I think it is important in LDS communities to have fathers in the hoe because for both sons and daughters you get to see what a worthy priesthood holder looks like. Now that may not always be the case but if we as parents live the life style and the way we want our children to be then we need to understand that children are always watching our examples.
How did our world get like this, telling fathers that they are not important to their own families? Let's look back in time to the time of the industrial revolution. Before this revolution families spent their entire day working together. Work and family time were not a separate thing they were intertwined into one thing. You naturally were working to sustain and stay a live but by doing so you were always with your family. The industrial revolution changed the meaning of family. It made it so that work life and family time became a separate thing. Jobs became more divided and fathers began working 60 or more hours each week. Now i ask what happens to the mother and children of that family while their father is gone? They now have to fill in where he was before. As they fill his shoes, the father begins to almost feel that he is getting kicked out of his family because it seems that they don't really need him there. They however truly need him. With out the father the example, discipline and a different kind of love is no longer there. The money that the father brings in starts to have a different meaning as well, he starts worrying about how much he is bringing in instead of how much they need to support their needs.
I add my own testimony to this, if the father is in the home teaching and duding along with the mother as a team the family begins to function and grow into that of a beautiful family. Each family member needs to feel as if their role is important, so that they contribute to the things that make family, family. If we continue to live life the way our father in heaven designed it to be we will be able to continue through life happily.