BYU-I Parenting Skills Takeaway #1: Everyone in the Family is a Person, Including You.

FAML 120 Takeaway #1

This is the first of a three-part series of my takeaways from a Parenting Skills class I took at Brigham Young University - Idaho. Each one will include a different takeaway I had from the class. Let's get started.

The first takeaway may seem absolutely obvious but it is a point that needs to be restated and remembered. Every member of a family is a person with needs and feelings, including you as the parent. This concept is well represented by the first two principles of the National Extension Parental Education Model (NEPEM or a mouthful that means very little to me but its principles are meaningful) which are Self-Care and Understanding. I'll elaborate on how these two principles apply to my takeaway.

Self-Care

To bring your best self to parenting and family life, you have to take care of that best self. You won't have any energy, positivity, or patience to offer your children if you do not take the time to restock those resources with some self-care. Take some time to rest, enjoy a hobby, exercise, bathe, whatever it takes to feel whole so that you can be wholly present when it comes to family time later on. When framed in this way we can get rid of the guilt of "me time" by knowing that "self-care is not selfish". 

Understanding

The other half of this coin is that everyone else in your family, children included, has needs, feelings, and emotions. Understanding that principle and then putting in the effort to understand those feelings grants personhood to even the littlest members of our families. It is an opportunity to see and acknowledge their individuality. Once you become aware of those feelings as well as letting others be aware of yours, you create an atmosphere where mutual respect can exist. This respect cannot stand in an environment where children think their parents are unfeeling automatons who grant or disregard requests on programming, or where parents see their children as inanimate clay for them to mold into their designs. Each person in a family is exactly that, a person. An infinitely complex creature (or one learning to become such) who is inherently worthy of the care we so much crave to receive from others.

This class has shown me where I am strongest as a father and where I have shortcomings.