Being a parent ain't easy, as i have learnt from being a parent these 6 years to 2 kids. It seems to me that the time I have for myself has disappeared into thin air. Though in recent years, I have craved out time for my own activities but I will feel guilty when I think back about it. Gone were the days when I can use the time I have on my own freely without feeling guilty.
E.g if I want to go shopping with friends, I have to make plans for either my hubby or my parents to take care of the kids vs in the past where i can check my calendar and simply just poof off to shop. If not that, I will have to take leave to go shopping, how pathetic you might say. But this is really 1 of the way to work around it.
Therefore when hubby sent me an email recently that writes about the 6 A’s of good parenting. Reading it really gives me an insight of what I have or have not done right.
1. Availability
When we are available to our children it gives them a sense of importance.We can say all we want about how important our children are to us. But if we’re not available to them, our words will ring hollow.Sometimes, our automatic response to our kids when they approach us is, “Not right now, I’m busy.” But our children should come before our TV-watching, our hobbies and our work. So when our kids come to us, our response should be to stop, drop and listen. Stop what we’re doing, drop to our knees, and listen to them, hug them, play with them.
Therefore this point of being available to our kids ring a huge bell for me. Many a times, while we are home my kids might want to hold a conversation with me or show me stuff and I will tell them to hold on to their thoughts or tell them to wait while I finish the task on hand. So this is kinda like a wake up call to me to drop the things i am doing at that moment (excluding bathing) and give all my attention to my kids when they request for it.
Other A's coming up......
