My Parenting Transformation Journey - page 1

I know this won't be immediately recognized as a topic related to the rest of my blog, but since it's MY blog, I can do whatever I want ;)

Background:

Since I was a child, all I wanted was to be a mother, and a really good one at that. But after marrying in 1991, and after my husband and I started our family, then came the financial struggles.

Suddenly my focus was not on the joys of motherhood as I had hoped, but on the constant struggle to meet our financial obligations. Thereafter, all of my research, all of my studies, all of the seminars we attended, all of it - was to find a way to settle the money problem once and for all so that I could finally get back to focusing on the joys of motherhood.

I know that I should have been doing both at the same time, and I did that as much as I could, but unless you've lived with that constant, and seemingly unending worry yourself, you may not understand how hard that is to do.

Well, we found our answers. After seven years the lights went on, we finally understood the laws of success that we had been violating, we applied what we learned, and tripled our income in short order.

However, instead of just putting it to rest and getting back to motherhood with 100% focus, suddenly I instead felt duty-bound to share what we had learned with others who were struggling. I had to do it.

Fast forward 11 more years, and you find me burned out on the rigors of putting on events and teaching what we learned. Feeling assured that I had given back enough, and that it was time to claim my own life-long dream of focusing 100% on my own little family, I automated my websites as much as possible, and made a shift. By this time (which was 2 years ago), I had seven children ranging from ages 4 to 19.

I was proud of my family, and how well the kids were turning out in spite of my split attention. As tough as it was sometimes, the silver lining was that it had become a family cause to work together and share the principles with others. They learned entrepreneurship by watching the books be created and marketed, and by helping us put on our functions. They learned interdependence as they filled in and met some of the daily responsibilities that traditionally belong to the mother while I worked to create the tools and systems meant to help others (who struggle like we did) to find a way to put their own money issues to rest.

But after backing off and shifting my attention more completely to my growing family, I began seeing more clearly the needs of my own children and how important it was that I make that shift. So I've spent the last two years learning about them more completely, and helping them facilitate the changes in their lives that they wanted to make - such as getting through an AP Chemistry class, making new friends, learning a skill, or overcoming a challenge. It was more than a full time job and I wondered how they had survived all those years without my full attention.

So here we are, beginning another new chapter in our lives, and what's bubbled up to the surface through this transition is a painfully new awareness of my unconscious parenting mistakes. I have so much to learn.

I'm becoming aware, for example, of how frequently I've been frustrated and impatient when a child has a complaint that seems frivolous or inconvenient. I'm realizing how unpredictable my parenting has been, and how hard that must be for a kid to navigate our shifting environment.

So in preparation for the new school year, my husband and I just attended a parenting workshop by Nicholeen Peck (she's the mother in the video that you'll see if you click on her name). There's an interesting history behind how we ended up in her class, but I'll have to save that story for another day.

To follow me as I begin documenting this journey, click on the NEXT POST below:

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