Hi everyone,

Since this is the FAMILY AND PARENTING forum, I thought I'd start up a thread about certain qualities as parents we feel we need to improve. No one is perfect, although we try to be with our kids... what is that quality for you?

For me, I feel like I'm not too great at entertaining my child (along with alot of other things I need to fix). I've never been good with children and tried once mine came to exist ( ), yet I feel like I always lack in that area. I try, and yet I feel as if somehow, someway she gets bored and lonely. Maybe it's the fact that she doesn't have a sibling, but I get the feeling it's just me... Point is, there's always room for improvement...

Patience.... definitely patience. Very lacking in that department :rolleyes: .

Mimi

It is drawing the line in just the right place! My older child is a constant challenge. If you give a milimeter, he wants to take a mile. BUT he is also very sensitive and intense. He needs a safe place to express all his emotions, including the not-so-nice ones. If I try to run a SUPER tight ship, he spends his entire life in time out. Trying to find the right line to draw and helping him succeed at it is so hard! :p :boggled: When I give him too much rope, then he annoys me and scares himself by treating me like a subhuman. He is almost 6 now. I sure hope I get the hang of this before he grows up...

Definately the ability to balance career and my daughter...meaning that I'm trying to put all work off until AFTER she is asleep and trying not to take on more projects than I can handle.

I also need to learn to relinquish control meaning that I need to learn to leave the house a mess and just play with her! After all, she is only going to be young for such a short time!

I can definitely relate to what you guys are talking about. Patience... for example. How in the world did I forget to mention patience? I catch myself being impatient with my daughter more than necessary. Today for instance, I was helping her with her first homework assignment which was to pick a random product in the household and learn to read it and draw the word on a piece of paper. It took her an hour to read "Lucky Charms", and I caught myself getting frustrated. This of course, stems from my impatience... I realized that she's ONLY 5, and that I need to give her the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps, she would work better if she didn't sense her mother being so difficult. :yes: It's something I try to control. In time, I hope it gets better.

Annie

bump... :wave:

While I think patience is essential to parenting I think a more important quality is the ability to apologize to your children. There will be many times when no matter how hard hard we try, we're going to be lacking in patience and get frustrated. But I think if after you have raised your voice at your child, you apologize to them and explain that you lost your temper, it will go a long way in helping them feel better about it. This works well for me and my daughter.

playfulness - it really helps to be playful in all kinds of activities including discipline

Perspective. Sometimes, when I'm getting frustrated with my very active 1 year old boy for being a very active 1 year old boy (with all the limit-pushing it brings), I have to remind myself that he's only going to be this age once, so I should try to enjoy him as much as I can.

I don't spoil him, mind you, I just try to have as much fun with him as I can.

I can definately relate. It is nice to see that other people have the same issues that I have. I don't feel like I spend enough time with my kids I have soo much homework that I can't wait until they go to bed and I feel like my nose is always buried in a book