Are you attending to your children but ignoring
yourself? Discover the importance of attending to your children’s
feelings and needs while also taking care of your own feelings and
needs.
Think about this for a moment: Is it really possible to love your
children without loving yourself, or to love yourself without loving
your children?
The answer is no.
If you are ignoring yourself to take care of your children, this is not
loving to your children or to yourself. While being there for your
children is very important, it is equally important to role model for
them what it is like to take responsibility for your own well-being. If
you take care of your children but do not take care of your own feelings
and needs, they will not learn how to take responsibility for their
feelings and needs. They will grow up either expecting someone else to
take care of them, or they will care-take others while ignoring
themselves – just as you do.
On the other hand, if you are narcissistic and just attend to what you
want, ignoring your children’s feelings and needs, you are not being
loving to yourself or your children. You cannot possibly end up feeling
worthy and valuable within yourself when you are self-centered and
ignore your children’s needs.
If you are approving of your children but judgmental toward yourself,
your children will likely learn to be judgmental toward themselves. You
are their role model, and they will likely learn to do what you do. If
you treat them well but treat yourself badly, there is a good
possibility that they will learn to treat themselves badly, no matter
how loving you are with them.
If you want to be a loving parent with your children, it is essential
that you also learn to be a loving parent with yourself. This does not
mean that you ignore your children’s needs in favor or your own, or vise
versa. What it does mean is that you learn to create a balance between
taking care of them and taking care of yourself. While this is not
always possible, especially with infants, it is certainly a goal to aim
for.
This may mean that they don’t always get what they want just when they
want it – once they are old enough to play by themselves. It means that
sometimes you say to them things like:
“I need some time alone for myself now and you need to play by yourself
for awhile.”
“We (you and your spouse) need some time alone together right now so you
need to find something to do.”
“I’m on the phone and this is important to me. What you want will have
to wait.”
“Daddy and I (or Mommy and I) are talking about something that is
important to us. Please don’t interrupt us right now.”
“I need to go to sleep early tonight because I have to get up early for
an important appointment, so please do not make noise and wake me up.”
As a parent, you need to learn to respect your own feelings and needs as
well as theirs. By honoring your feelings and needs as well as
theirsArticle Search, they will learn to take responsibility for their
own feelings and needs while also respecting and honoring others’
feelings and needs.
Many people have been taught that taking care of their own feelings and
needs is selfish – that they should just be there for others. This is a
false definition of selfish. We are being selfish when we expect others
to give themselves up for us. We are being self-responsible when
lovingly take care of ourselves while also caring about others.
You serve your children well when you learn to stay tuned into to their
feelings and needs as well as your own. You have a good chance of
raising caring and personally responsible children when you learn to
care about yourself while taking loving care of them.
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