Do you wish you had more time  to be with your family?

Do you feel you’re on the rollercoaster of life, with little opportunity to relax?

Have you noticed that when you hear the sounds of happy children playing, or when they say lovely, quirky things only kids say, that you don’t notice them or don’t take in and appreciate them?

Have you wondered if you’re doing the right thing?  You’ve had plenty of advice but you’re still unsure?  Or, despite all of your efforts to do your best with your kids, things just don’t seem to be turning out how you wanted, they misbehave, or they don’t turn out to be the people you had hoped they would be.

Well, you’ll be glad to know that you’re not alone, that many other families are experiencing the same, so I am sure you will enjoy some of the true stories you’ll find throughout this book.

I wish to congratulate you for having an open mind, for taking the step to educate yourself about how you can improve your family life.

Most people don’t take this step, and carry on unquestioningly.  I know there are many families who know they are doing the right thing for them, leading the life they want, and that’s great.  Because you’re reading this book now, I take it you’re looking for an alternative, and I’m honoured to be able to share my ideas and experiences with you.
 
As you read it, you will have to ask yourself: “What makes sense to me?  What is common sense?  What actually produces the RESULTS I WANT?”

This book was written to show you what I believe the most fundamental key to parenting is, how we don’t have to allow our modern life to take us over, and how parenting isn’t complicated.  It needs a simple and natural approach.

With all the messages and expectations from society, schools, and mother-in-law, it is easy to feel overwhelmed.  We somehow expect to be perfect, and we are the same with our children.  We expect them to be perfect too.  The reality is, no-one’s perfect, and never will be.  Wouldn’t it be a boring world if we were?  There’d be no “saying it with flowers”, there’d be no out-takes, no-one would learn anything new because, well, they don’t need to – they’re perfect!

Likewise, I myself don’t profess to be perfect.  I’m writing this book so that I can hopefully help you, show you you’re not alone, give you a new perspective on parenting, and more than anything, help you take out some of the stress and strain, because I care that you are able to experience and take in as much of the pleasures of being a parent, because this is what we don’t necessarily enjoy in today’s society, with the pressures coming in on us.

I must confess that in my household, even with three lovely children, we just weren’t enjoying parenthood at all!  We allowed work to occupy our minds so that we weren’t able to sincerely enjoy time with family, nor fully be with each other.  When I say ‘fully’ I mean, giving our attention totally to each other.  We worried about our children’s development and abilities at school, we compared them to other children.  We felt guilty if we thought we weren’t giving them the ultimate party, as others were doing, or the latest electronic toys.  We would wonder if we were doing the right thing, and would unwittingly put our own limiting beliefs upon our children, and were quick to judge them.  We allowed our own emotions to control how we treated them.   Together with my husband we realised what was eroding our ‘family time’ and that our priorities had drifted to outside influences, like work.

On 1st January 2006 our 9 year old daughter suffered meningitis, a serious, life-threatening disease.  Suddenly we were faced with the possibility that she would no longer be with us.  Miraculously after two weeks in hospital, some of this in a Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, she came through and is now fully recovered.  I believe that many events happen to us for a reason, and the uncertainty at that time was agonising and made us face up to important issues relating to our relationship with her.  It taught us how precious parenthood is, and the paramount importance of the family unit in shaping the memories and futures of our children.  So let’s not forget that the family is Number 1, and all that other ‘stuff’ that life brings along, like work and school, they’re things we must do, but they’re not to take us over to the detriment of our personal relationships.

What’s important?  To bring a child into the world, and to help shape the future of that child, his joy, his confidence, his vision, is probably the most responsible job there is.  And the most rewarding!  It’s to be enjoyed.  After all, a family is precious, and before we know it, we’re looking back and realise our children have suddenly grown up!

I found that there are three factors affecting our family life:-

In this book you won’t find detailed strategies on how to get your kids to clean their room, or how to potty train them.

What it will do is get you thinking about:-

It will help you, I hope, to change your focus and hi-light that happiness, confidence and self-esteem are fundamental qualities of life, and the internal messages (messages we tell ouIrselves in our head) control our happiness, confidence and lifetime achievements.  Telling ourself “I’m not good at ……” or “I can’t ……” are blocks to us achieving our best.  A parent who is aware of this can empower her child to develop a healthy attitude and to better deal with those many hurdles that come along throughout life.

And finally, I have included a section on health.  I believe our health is fundamental to our daily life, and to our future, and especially for our kids.  I see about me so many obese or near-obese kids.  I walked into a café the other day and a mother was spoon feeding her baby, who looked about 8 months old, with chocolate gateau.
 
There’s heaps of research and information telling us about our modern diets and the increasing health risks resulting, but the ultimate role of changing habits for better health in the future is down to parents to educate their children.  Helping them to form good habits and look after themselves now will set them up for good health as adults.  Ideally habits are best formed at a young age.  I’m sure you will agree that it’s harder to get out of a bad habit than it is to get into a good one!

This book holds a simple yet unique approach to parenting.  It will show you how to manage your relationship with your children, giving you, the parent, the confidence to know you can create a harmonious environment, happy children and a great future for them.  This approach gets you looking at YOU, the parent.  It’s down to you – you’re the adult – you shape your family relationships because you’re the role model.

I really think it unwise to believe it is the responsibility of politicians, the media or anyone in power to guide us in our lives and health choices.  They have their own agendas.  We must take total control and responsibility for our family life choices ourselves.

Parenting is not a complex process which we may be led to believe in our modern society.  Look at it this way.  Children have been brought up all around the world through the ages in many varied environments and cultures.  Picture the baby carried in a simple cloth on his mother’s back high up in the Himalayan mountains – he may lead a simple way of life with his family, but the same key principles of family life and relationships apply to him as to your kids.  His parents are number 1.  He relies upon them as his role models, from whom he learns his habits, both emotional and physical.  His relationship with them is key, just as it is in our complex modern society.

It’s at this point I’d like to tell you why I did not write this book.  I did not write this book because I believe it’s the only way, the parent’s ‘Bible’ to perfect parenting, the only answer in our cosmic universe.  The reason I wrote this book is because it’s the way that’s worked, and is still working, for me and my family.  As you read it, you may guess that at times I haven’t been a ‘chilled’ parent, and still find it hard at times!  As I’m making my last changes to this manuscript it’s the school holidays, the kids are around as you can imagine, and it’s hard not to say “get lost, can’t you see I’m writing?”!  I do, however, believe I have one answer that can help you to see that, whatever your worries have been, you’re not alone, and really, you’re probably doing OK.  I just ask you to put my strategies to the test, implement some or all of them, and see the change for the better.

The fundamental message I want to get across is that I don’t think there’s an absolute right way to be a parent.  We get loads of advice from everywhere about what we should and should not do, but really all children are different.  We try to do our best and what we think is right, and things still go wrong.

For example, a parent once relayed this story to me about her experience with her son.

“My oldest son was not allowed any toy guns because we did not like the principle of them.  When he was 18 months old he bit his toast into the shape of a gun and shot me with it!!  To make it all worse, when he was 14 years old he was with some friends at a local park and one of them had a replica gun. The group of them had been mucking around with it and someone called the police.  No prizes for guessing who was holding it when the police arrived.  I received a telephone call to say my son had been arrested and was being held in a police cell!  I was angry with the owner of the gun who did not speak up and say that it was his gun and not my son's.  On retrospect maybe I should have allowed him to play with guns as a child - who knows!!”