Kids...How do you raise them???

That's the trillion dollar question isn't it! No one really gives you a handbook. You're left at the hospital door with a baby and a car seat! I remember when Max my first was born. I was young, 23, a kid myself. I thought why did I think I could do this. I spent the next eight months in a panic. I mean that. I had panic attacks, was nervous and freaking out. I was at a moment in time where I was evolving as a person to a new person... a mom, a responsible for other lives person. It was really, frankly too much for me to handle.

It's been 16 years since that and all those years I still think everyday what am I supposed to do with these developing humans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Someone help me! Recently, however, I have noticed that one of my kids the oldest one is actually making it. He survived me and he is actually a great person. He is a teenager I like to be around and so do others. He's confident, he takes some risks, he likes his parents, he talks to us about everything and anything and he kisses me and asks how my day was everyday. Don't get me wrong his room is a mess, smells like some kind of metal and he swears alot and eats too much junk food, but that's minor. Right?

Since I started down the parent path early compared to my peers and I have a lot of friends 10 years younger than I, I have begun to have people ask me how did you get this great relationship with your kids. My first reaction was, "You think I did something right? I've been flying by the seat of my pants trying this and trying that?" A few thoughts later though I realized there are a few things that I think have actually been a pattern in my parenting. I wrote those in an email to a new friend who asked me how do you instill confidence in your kids? I looked at her at dinner with her baby and toddler and thought thank God I am through that stage it is all so big and overwhelming then. What can I tell her to boost her confidence in herself, to put this whole big parenting business into perspective, to break it down.

What follows is a cut and paste copy of the email I sent her. She generously emailed back and told me she had put the email in a box of important things to remember that she keeps with her. Maybe some morsel of this will make you feel that you are enough for your kids. Cause you are! If you think I left anything out blog us back!

Here's the gmail:

Okay so I know you're a new mom and you were trying to see if I held the truth to raising kids...I didn't want to go on and on at dinner and bore our childless friends, but I thought I'd send you a few thoughts today! Now these thoughts are not truths because there are no "for sures" in raising kids. Every kid is a human being and requires different parenting and you will soon see that. But there are a few things that seem to be working out for me.

1. Be around and available. That doesn't mean you are constantly playing with your kids and entertaining them and having a Beaver Clever moment every moment. It means you are home and around and aware and your kids know that you are available to help them, keep an eye on them, know their friends, know when they are up to something. It will drive you nuts, but always let friends be in your house making a mess and eating your food becasue then you know what type of friends your kids have and can offer advise if needed. Also the friends will start to feel responsible to you as they get older if they have a relationship with you and not want to dissapoint you. One time Max's friend stayed over night and snuck out to go see his girlfriend. His mom called me the next day to tell me. Next time I saw him he apologized I gave him a lecture about how if I can't trust him then I have to monitor him like a child or he can't stay over. I told him he put me in a bad situation because I want to be responsible for him and asked could I trust him. He told me yes and was sorry and we never had that problem again.

2. Listen and validate the feelings of your kids they are human beings. What they feel they feel even if we think it is dumb or not true it is their perception. If your daughter is insecure at some point (which she will be as a girl) don't say things like that's not true you're not fat. Say I'm sorry you feel that way. I've felt that way, but then I looked around me saw that compared to other people I wasnt' fat and remembered I love myself the way I am. If you want to eat better we can do that if you want to work out we can do that. But remember girls at your age often have a hyper aware sense of themselves and sometimes it isn't always true. All you can do is love yourself and make changes in a positive direction. In other words teach that we only control so much in life. Worry is useless, but action is in our control. Always love yourself as a person and your kids will pick that up.

3. Put your marriage first and your kids follow. Go out with your husband, make time for each other and make the kids fit in with that. They will choose partners that then care about them and realize it's important to value yourself.

4. Accept them as they are...sports or no sports, loud or quiet, sensitive or not. I have a nerdy son that I would never have thought I would have! He still needs to feel like a great worthy person and I can't be trying to change him or he'll feel like he's not right. Neither kid is into sports, or getting involved in school stuff...there is a pressure to make them do those things, but finally I decided that you have to want to do something to do it. My kids are into family and friends and I don't think there is anything wrong with that.

5. Make family a rock solid center of life...sounds like you do that. Eating with the grandparents, buying gifts for cousins, visiting aunts and uncles....treating friends like family....the more people that are concerned for your kids and creating a village to raise them the more secure they feel as over said as that is.

6. Talk talk talk to them about anything. Never make any subject embarrassing, tell them about sex before anyone else has the chance, I did it starting with animals or whenever questions came up. I just answered what I thought they could handle. When my older son learned that girls have periods in 6th grade before I had told him and told me it was gross I was pissed I didn't tell him first and had to back track and tell him that's how he got here, it's not gross it's natural and really actually amazing that it works and never to talk badly about it to girls.

7. When all that fails just let your kids know constatnly they are great, valued and loved. Look for moments to praise them and moments to tell them when they are being jerks and how to change that. I say I love you at least 5 times a day to each kid or you're so cute in blue or your awesome at math...As long as they have that even if they struggle with things in life they know they are worthy and will eventually come through. I have also told my kids when they are jerks and how they can be aware of that and change that behavior too!

8. Remember no matter what you do your kids will sometimes take the wrong path or struggle. Some more than others. That is not your fault. Remember that you had times where no matter what people said to you you thought you were the exception. Show through your own actions that the world is full of adventure and options and there's no need to rush and miss out on things, that you can choose to go off the beaten path and try something, that failures are opportunities and can be recovered, that planning is also important and there's a balance. they learn that stuff by you and your husband living that life. they see hard work and are hard workers. they see adventure and know that it is an opportunity if that will make them happy. They see how you handle hard times in life either with positive outlook and emotions or by letting it knock you down. Be the best person you can be and they will learn. The best person may not be the same as the soccer mom at school to you and you can't emulate anyone. I dont' think you will have that problem though you are sassy.

Well I think you really wanted to know what I thought....if not this was too much info. Take it for what it's worth. There's no action plan just some big ideas.