SMART IDEAS: Readers' parenting advice
I feel the worst advice any new mother should receive is how someone else tells you to raise and take care of your newborn child.
I had five children, and the best advice I was told and will also give is, your children watch how you conduct yourself and listen to what you say - and will do the same. Teach them very early in life and bring them up in God’s way about trust, love, hope and to believe in themselves. Be around good people and belive in God, and good values, and they will do well in life. My children did, and I’m very proud of them.
- Edith Lo Bianco, Dallastown
I was a missionary mom with two young children, ages 1 and 3, living in a doll-sized house in a small village in Thailand. No TV. No babysitters or family to provide the occasional break. I’d stopped playing the guitar because the boys would be climbing all over me to get at it. I’d stopped being artistic because there was no uninterrupted time or space to do art. I had begun to see my kids as obstacles to all my creative impulses.
When I discovered an article (in the early 1980s) about how my kids could be opportunities instead of obstacles I began to change my way of thinking. We could do art together. We could explore the world around us and look for details and colors and shapes and sizes and textures and variety. We could create in the kitchen, going first to the market to discover some new and interesting ingredients.
I didn’t have a lot of time to read my books but instead I read a lot to the kids, and we were always on the prowl for new books. These changes became my new habits, and it was natural to continue this pattern with the next two that came along in the following years.
- Holly Niphakis, Dallastown
“The best advice I was given was actually a poem in a cross-stitch way back when my oldest was born. It goes like this:
‘Cleaning and scrubbing can wait for tomorrow,
For babies grow up, I’ve learned, to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust, go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby, and babies don’t keep.’
- Ruth Hulburt, Hamilton
Absolutely the best advice, in my opinion!
Worst advice, . . . picking the baby up too much will spoil him. Crazy.
- Tracy Hollman, Manchester Township
• Children must be introduced to education (learning and reality) at an early age and understand they must grow up to be responsible adults, and understand morality and ethics.
• Education and growing up do not occur automatically with age; children must be taught, and learning should continue their entire life.
• Pampering, over indulgence and lack of discipline will not produce adults.
The rules above are the result of my 80 years, that included being a child of my parents, being a parent, cooperation with my children’s teachers, officer in Parent Teacher organizations at local and county levels, graduate of Johns Hopkins, substitute teacher in a junior high school, teaching classes at Delaware County Community College, and observation of our four children, seven grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
- Edwin T. Calvert, East Berlin
In my experience, a good parent corrects without criticizing, encourages without harping, supports but never threatens or rejects, helps when help is needed (without bankrupting themselves in terms of time, money or emotional resources!), never raises their voice or their hand in violence, lets loose without letting go, never fails to say and show love daily, prays unceasingly, exposes children to enriching new experiences, and then steps back to watch as each child finds or chooses his or her own path in life. The parent never holds the child too tightly, as this suffocates the child from finding her or his own passions and loves in life. Children are SUPPOSED to grow up, leave home, and contribute to the world on their own terms. They are not a substitute to fulfill the parents’ own emotional needs.
- Robert L. Anderson, York
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