Saturday, February 2, 2008

learning to be a parent


It's a little late but I've started reading about how to be a good parent. I was poking around on BYU's online classes site and decided to check out the free course about having a happy family. I can't say that there is anything totally earth-shattering in the course so far but one thing in particular has really made me decide to focus a little more on a certain area. Here is the quote that struck me in particular:

"What is a basic human need? It is something a human being must have to grow and develop and be emotionally healthy. I believe that there are four basic human needs: the need to feel significant, the need to feel important, the need to feel worthwhile, and the need to feel valuable. You must intentionally make sure that these basic human needs are met in your home. There is no greater gift, in terms of personal well-being, that you can offer your children. If you look for the opportunity, you will see numerous chances to help your children feel valuable, important, significant, and worthwhile every day."

Although I don't think any of this comes as a surprise, it's nice to be reminded of a specific, doable goal to focus on in my parenting. We all want our kids to turn out to be nice people, but sometimes it's hard for me to remember what exactly I'm supposed to be doing to achieve that goal on an every day basis. This is something I am really going to try to always keep in the back of my mind when dealing with my children.

4 comments:

Megan said...

That's a great quote. Thanks for sharing that, Carrie!

mandakay said...

ur such a good mommy. thanks for sharing that!

Anonymous said...

Thanks Carrie! I am going to be reffering back to that post someday!

Stephanie said...

that's great- i always want advice like that because i feel like it is so daunting to have the task of shaping a person! this puts some obtainable perspective on it all.