Monday, July 18, 2011

Parenting style

So DH and I were discussing the type of parents we want to be.  I know it seems a little late but everything you think you know about parenting is no where near close to what you learn about yourself and your child once you actually are a parent.  So now that we've been doing this for 19 months, what do we think?

Part of this discussion is DH constant need to monitor Audrey's health.  I don't mean just watch and keep notes but obsess.  I think having been burned by a few doctors as a child (he nearly died) and a couple of bad doctors for our Audrey, he just wants to make sure nothing passes him by.  Me, I try to be chill.  Not every fever means death or horrible disease.  The older she gets the less bad disease and the such are, right?

He did say something that scared me.  He said he wanted to be a helicopter dad!  Scary!  I understand what he means.  I want to be watchful.  I want to be careful but I need to also let go.  No calling college professors to ask about grades.  No calling the boss to ask about performance reviews.  So how do you raise an independent child but make sure they grow up fairly healthy and protected?

Not sure about this one.  The Casey Anthony trial and the little boy in New York plus way too many E! specials on young murders just makes me freak out and want to never let her out of my sight.  DH is very pro-public high school.  Me, I don't like the idea of public schools at all (9 years as a public educator ruined it for me).  We've talked about unschooling her.  As is Audrey has like 80 words down and is learning her ABCs and 1, 2, 3s just by chatting with her.  But again it's about her being safe not really education.  Is she safe at a school?  Is she safe anywhere?  If not then what does that mean for our family?  Being a parent is such a balancing act between freaking out about everything and letting go.  Much harder than I thought originally.  So what is our parenting style?  I'm going with work in progress for us all.

1 comment:

  1. Compromise and communication is the best thing to do as parent. Glad you guys discuss how you want to parent. I've been lucky enough to have the same views as the hubs but when it comes to health he seems to be more hands on. Our parenting style is very similar to how we were brought up. I'll have to do a post espcially since we are considering preschool for little man now He's turning 3 next week :)

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