A bright ray of hope

During the mothering process, natural feelings of fear and inadequacy will continue to haunt the determined woman.

Often, these pitfalls set me back from helping a child become what God wants them to be. Did I REALLY give enough love, discipline, guidance, teaching, and support? Did my EFFORTS rear the child to be independent, self-sufficient, and confident to make the best choices to ensure happiness?

Reflecting on these topics lead me back 19 years when we first became parents to our oldest son, Brandon, who celebrates a birthday today and will leave in one week to serve a full-time 2-year mission.

Much of child-raising is learning and growing yourself and Brad and I had to do a lot of this during the first part of our parenting. Not only were we struggling to gain independence and self-sufficienicy ourselves by working through 11 years of school, but we had other family responsibilities that contributed to life's trials. Choices made during these years certainly contributed to our ability to parent effectively.

Although I was very committed to certain mothering standards, I will always wonder concerning my inadequacies as a young nurturer and how they affected my older children.

Certainly, these years taught me much about myself and experiences led to improving my parenting tactics. As I rely on these life-teaching moments, it becomes easier to raise and teach my younger children life skills.

Discussing 2011 goals with each child is a popular event during this week and Brad recently encouraged the 4 children to achieve the goals they had written down. He is a much more gentle and soft-spoken parent and did a fantastic job teaching new resolutions to the children.

Awakening this morning to witness my 11-year-old spontaneously read to my 5-year-old reveals to me that change can happen, even in children. Carson was working on his daily goal of serving his sister and I got to be the secret witness of his efforts!

There is HOPE for our parenting tactics.