Parental Guidance

Proverbs 22:6 Teach children how they should live, and they will remember it all their life

The art of rearing a child is this:
If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight.
If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy.
If a child lives with shame, he learns to feel guilty.
If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient.
If a child lives with encouragement, he learns confidence.
If a child lives with praise, he learns to appreciate.
If a child lives with fairness, he learns justice.
If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith.
If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself.
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship, he learns to find love in the world.
- taken from Servant of All (Kids)

Being relatively new to the vocation of parenthood, my wife and I are still facing lots of challenges and trials on how to bring up our child Zek who is now a toddler and has a deep-well source of energy and curiosity in himself. So it has helped us a lot to hear stories and sharings of our parents, relatives and friends who are in advance stage in their parental experience. We also bought 2 books - "Discipline without Shouting or Spanking" and "TV-free 365 Activities for Toddlers" as our handy-dandy references if we want to try out fresh ideas. But the greatest challenge by far is how we are going to raise him to become a God-loving Catholic person we all want our children to be.And so looking back at what we have done and what we are still doing, here are some of our own baby-step tips on how we are raising our 3-year old son.

Teach
Even when he was still in her mother's womb, we have been reading Jesus stories to him before we all sleep at night. And this we continue to do so during his first year. It was only after he learned to have fun turning ( I actually mean "tearing") the pages did we stop and keep the book again. But this year, we will try to revive this activity with her new baby sister so both will hear and learn about Jesus at their early age. We just hope he will already outgrow his page-tearing activity by now. We bring him along during the twice a month Sunday masses. We try our best to have our morning and evening prayers. By now, iIt is simply heartwarming to see Zek making the sign of the cross by himself or to hear him instinctively repeating after the Our Father, reciting the last part of Hail Mary and mumbling the Glory Be prayers. We also let him listen to Christian meditation songs during his nap time. Basic virtues we also tackle as situations comes - respectfulness, politeness, helpfulness, sharing and obedience are favorite topics at his present age.

Time
Being an OFW, it is an exceptionally wonderful blessing that my family can stay with me. This precious privilege I appreciate by making sure I spend quality time with them. When I'm in the office, then I earnestly do my job so that at the end of the day, I absolutely have no need to do work at home and just be a 95% father to our son (Yes, 100% is my target but I must admit that I am still struggling to give up 1 to 2 hours weekly when my favorite TV shows are in season). Zek and I have our routine after dinner - playing or "goofing" time, washing time and finally, sleeping time. He knows it by heart and the sparkle in his eyes says how much he loves doing them with me. I sincerely do also. It is the highlight of my everyday.

Tag-Team
My wife and I share the tasks in taking care of Zek because we believe that our child needs us both to guide him. If one of us reprimands his misbehavior, the other one explains to him later so he understands the effects of his wrong behavior and receives assurance that we love him despite his misbehavior.In taking care of him, my wife takes the whole day and the graveyard shift while the mornings will be my turn to clean and wash all the used bottles and to prepare our breakfast so she can sleep a little longer. During weekends, it will be our exclusive father and son bonding time the whole day. We play, watch his favorite DVD shows, go outside for a walk or to the nearby supermarket and do anything we can think of at the spur of the moment.

Trust
And for whatever we are lacking, overlooking or failing to do, we pray and lift them up to the Lord and entrust our Zek and baby Maia to His unfailing care, guidance and protection.

New ideas and approaches are inevitable as Zek and baby Maia grows and their strengths and interests becomes evident but we honestly believe these 4 points will be our main guiding points. And yes, we have already sent inquiry feelers to CFA so Zek can be enrolled by next school year. Excitement abounds.

Our family journey is just beginning and we have a lot to learn and to look forward to. Still, sometimes, we do wonder if we are on the right track in raising our children properly.Curiously, whenever this silly thought occurs, all we have to do is catch a glimpse of Zek or Maia smiling or serenely in their sleep and all anxieties simply go away.

We'll be fine.
Our Lord God will make sure about that.
Our trust is in Him.