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Parenting

1 Nephi 1:1 “I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father;”
I love that the Book of Mormon starts off this way. As I have read this verse many times in my life I have been reminded that Parents are so important. My classes this week were all about parenting.

Here are a few questions that I think are important to ask ourselves.
What do you want to accomplish with Parenting?
What is the purpose of Parenting?
What qualities do I want my children to have?

Michael Popkin has said, “to protect and prepare children to survive and thrive in the world which they will live,” is the most important thing for a parent to do.

I found it interesting that the world we live in plays a huge part in the way children are raised. If raised in a Monarchy, children are more clever, obedient, and compliant. When raised in a Democracy, children are more respectful, responsible, courageous, cooperative, and better self-esteem.

My parents have always wanted their children to be hard workers and responsible. They didn’t just tell us to be responsible or hard workers, but they were great examples of it. Right after they got married they decided to buy a small dairy farm. My mom grew up on a family dairy farm and my dad worked on several farms growing up. From the time I was born until the age of twelve, I worked beside my parents and siblings everyday to keep our dairy farm going. I learned how to work hard because I watched my parents work hard. I believe this was very important and instilled in me because it started at a very young age. I have photos of me at age one and two helping feed the calves. Even now that we don’t have a farm to work on, my parents still want my younger siblings to become hard workers as well. Every year they buy several lambs for my sibling to raise to show at the county fair. Now that I am older and have had more jobs, I am grateful that my parents taught me these qualities. Many of my bosses have complimented me for being responsible and hard working.

In class I learned four things that parents should do for their children: Preside, Provide, Protect, and Nurture. Very familiar right? All of those are listed in the Family Proclamation to the World. In order to preside you need to plan. To provide for your children, you can pay for them. Something parents can do to protect their kids to to pair up with them. Lastly, nurturing can be done by encouraging the children.

Something that my teacher said was, “you can never get enough of what you don’t need.” This applies to The Needs Approach that Micheal Popkin teaches. I want to talk about the need for contact and belonging. We learned that many children would rather have some contact than no contact. That contact could even be abuse. Several stories were shared about children who would act out just so they could have contact with an adult. It is so important to have appropriate and nice contact with children. The other needs that children have are power, protection, withdrawing, and challenge.

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