what life-lessons have you learned from your child?

[cassidy]

I am constantly amazed at how insightful my little girl is. She was born brilliant, truly, she holds the key to happiness! She is so simple and happy with just her Mommy and her toys. She doesn't need money, expensive toys (tupperware will do just fine), a big fancy house, an impresive job... anything the modern american adult "needs". She reminds me that we get dumber and dumber with every birthday. She just IS, and as long as she is loved and gets to love she's cool. She keeps me grounded. I love her and she has tought me to stay in touch with myself and the simple things that make me happy ... not what everybody else thinks I should do and be. She is God's perfect little creature... and she never stops amazing me.

[juliebove]

Mine sure isn't like that! She cried for the first three months of her life. Never napped. Slept for 5 solid hours each night. Or she would have, had the Dr. allowed it. She was very underweight so they told me I had to wake her to feed her. It was next to impossible to get her back to sleep after that.

She finally took a nap at about 3 months of age. But after that, naps were very sporadic. Mostly she didn't nap. And she wasn't an overly happy small child. Yes, there was some happiness, but a lot of grouchiness. Things had to be "just so" or she wasn't happy. She is what I would call a "high needs" child. Can't stand to be left alone for two seconds.

Now we did learn last summer of 7 food allergies. After changing her diet she began to feel better. No doubt that was a lot of her unhappiness! And while she can be happy now, there is still a lot of grouchiness and moodiness. She has quite a mouth on her too. And a large vocabulary.

She isn't one of those kids who asks for everything she sees. I have seen kids that do that. But when she does ask for something and I don't buy it for her she either starts in on the "No fair!" thing or starts telling me what a bad mom I am. Tonight I bought her two new pairs of shoes, then we went next door to another store where she immediately asked to go to the shoe department!

She'll be 8 next month. She doesn't ask for a lot of toys. She never really did. But she has always liked clothing and the more expensive the better. Lately it is shoes. She really wants a certain pair of slip on Vans with a black and white checkerboard pattern. I have no problems with her having them. However, she already has plenty of athletic shoes. I had to buy her a new pair of solid white ones for her hip hop recital. I told her when school starts she will get those shoes. But she still asks for them every time she sees someone wearing them or anything even remotely looking like them.

She also wants me to go to work. I'm disabled so can't work. This annoys her no end and she keeps whining about how unfair it is that I don't work. If I worked, we'd have more money! Or so she thinks... And she's angry that she never got put into daycare. She always asks to go to daycare.

Seems like with her she always wants whatever it is she doesn't have. Then when she gets it she doesn't want it. Like tonight. The local gourmet grocery store has concerts each friday. We've been going to them. But tonight as we were about to leave she announced that she didn't want to go and how mean I was for making her go. She even went into great detail to explain to me the various types of bad behavior she was going to exhibit should I follow through and make her go to the concert. But once we got there, she recognized the band. We'd seen them before. Suddenly she wanted to be there! And she didn't want to leave when I told her we needed to go. They have limited seating there and people eat their dinner during the concert so I didn't feel like we should sit at our table when we were done eating with so many others waiting.

I can't say that I've learned any life lessons from my daughter. But I sure have had to work on my patience because she tries it on a regular basis!

[Conscious Midwife]

Cassidy

what your learnig from your little one is discussed in the book " The Four Agreements"

Juliebove

WOW. I'm all for self expression in little ones but does your daughter seem a bit selfish and disrespectful to you? Hmmm she is at a fine age to start doing a little service learning and see what it's like to help those who are in need. Just my initial thoughts as a mom of 5. Not passing any judgement.


For me my little ones have taught me:

To never ever give up... thanks to my tenacious toddlers

My 18 year old has taught me to dream bigger dreams and love myself... '08 Olympic Hopeful


My son (12) has taught me resilience and that even at our best we still have the propensity to be out of charecter and shock the daylights out of ourselves and those that love us.

My daughter (14) has taught me how to capatalize on the lemonade we make when life give us lemons ... the introverted middle child, high IQ yet often overlooked genius that has managed to save more money than she has ever been given 'cause she charges for everything, negotiates her gifts, and barters favors. Soon we will have to pay for hugs 'cause she at that don't touch me teen phase :)

[Conscious Midwife]

;)

[Leiloshka]

My children, ages 9 and 6, are teaching me forgiveness and to lighten up and be more fun. They quickly get over arguments with each other, don't harbor bitterness and are always laughing. I need to enjoy the laughter more and participate myself instead of getting so wrapped up in the problems of the day and taking everything so seriously.