Parenting Stages!

You may well be asking yourself, 'parenting stages, what in the world are those?' Isn't it our children who go thru the stages? It sure is, from infant to toddler to preschool to school age to latency, preteen, teens to adolescents finally to adult. Whew, were you even aware there were so many stages? Believe me when I say each and every one of these stages is amazing, stressful, thankless, the proudest moments of your life, they ball have their pros and cons. You work hard to be the best parent you can by reading books, sharing, watching shows, getting advice from everyone and anyone whether you want it or not. Just when you think, 'I finally have this stage figured out, I got it,' along comes another stage which is so different from the one you just mastered. You are thinking to yourself, here we go again questioning 'what's going on with my child, this is so not like him/her. You may be asking yourself 'what happened to my quiet, agreeable, obedient child, or what happened to my strong willed, in your face, challenging child? You may be asking yourself is this an age thing, is this normal, is it me, is there something wrong with my child? What am I doing that’s right and what am I doing that’s wrong. It can be stressful and overwhelming because we have this tendency, especially mothers, to blame ourselves or believe that it may be our fault that our kids are not who they used to be. Believe me they change, constantly! I found with my son that every time he is half way through one year from one birthday to the next he goes through a grumpy, weird stage.
Just like we adults go through our stages of growth, change in our likes and interests, changes in people we hang around with, changes in career, our kids also go through changes. The real difference is they are experiencing these changes and stages for the first time. This could be very scary for them especially if they suffer anxiety or low sense of self or are being raised with parents who suffer these things. This is even worse if the parent has addictions or mental health problems.
I love the quote "let's raise kids who do not need to be fixed as adults!" Sadly many of them do need to be fixed mainly because of poor parenting. Don't get me wrong I know each parent feels they are being a good parent but ask yourself are you parenting the way you were parented? If so, did you like and thrive in that environment and were your parents great parents? Children have so many influencers growing up and all of those influencers were raised with different standards and rules. We need to change our parenting stages to keep with the growth stages of our kids. We cannot parent a newborn who, is learning about attachment and trusting the world in the same way as we can a teen, who only wants to socialize, is going through physical changes and trying to figure out who they are and where they fit in.

Embrace each and every stage because one is more amazing than the last. Yes sure we wish they would stay small and cute forever, but reality is they grow up into adults! Help make them the best, confident, self- assured, productive members of society, that you can, it's your parental responsibility!