Parenting Emotions - Decisions

Whether your baby is planned or not

By the time you are holding your baby in your arms that first time

Its likely you will already have made plenty of tough decisions

Having your baby is just the beginning of many more choices

Sometimes the choices are ours

But sometimes we should leave the decisions to them

Watching your child make a decision and stand by the choice they make no matter what the outcome, is actually a very rewarding sensation for a parent
After all the reason they are able to make their own choice is down to the self confidence you have instilled in them from the beginning

All the way through life, we go jumping from one choice to another, from what shall I dress baby in today, to which is the best Nursery School for my toddler, which school can offer my child the best in education and so on.

Some children very quickly develop their independent streak and will forcefully tell you they don't like their choices, my memories of this include my daughter ripping off her nappies when she decided she wasn't going to wear them anymore, she was about 11 months old !!!! then there were the days when she absolutely refused to go anywhere the clothes I had set out for her that day, as for the meals, I lost count of the number of meals I binned after picking it up from the floor as she didn't want to eat what was on offer !!!!! I wasn't expecting any of that  !!!!!!!!

It is essential we equip our children to be able to stand up and make their own decisions, the only way we can do that is be allowing them the confidence to try things for themselves. Too often you hear parents saying to their children

"Don't do it that way !!!!"

Why shouldn't they ?????

As parents we should learn to sit back and allow our child to try and find their own way of attempting anything they want to. Our only reason for stopping them to find their own creativity should be for safety reasons !!

Big decisions should never be rushed, speaking personally my son a few months ago made the decision to stop seeing his dad, he took his time with this and had lots of discussions with myself and his counsellor, I actually feared he was making the wrong decision, but I allowed it to be his own choice and he has proved me wrong by turning his life totally around and going from a shy, unconfident young boy with low self esteem to a strong and confident young man who feels good about himself and his abilities.

We do fret over our children, that is only natural, after all they are everything to us and all we want is their health and happiness, but we also need to enjoy our child and not spend time worrying over the small things.

Decisions are always going to be a part of our life and a part of our childs, We will get some right and inevitably we will also get some wrong. But worrying won't change anything.

Once any decisions are made, we have to run with them and adapt ourselves to the after math of those choices. Teaching our child that kind of flexibility and adaptability will be of huge benefit to them