Parenting Done Right.. Or not?

The fear in my little sister's eyes when someone is yelling frightens me. Looking at her eyes scared me more than my mother's yelling. The way she looked at my mom when she was yelling; I couldn't help but hug her. I held her so tightly in my arms and at that moment, I did not want to let go. At that moment, I realized how much I love her and as a big sister, I have to do everything in my power to protect her and that's what I'm going to do for the rest of my life.

For the past five years since my little sister had been born, it's been tough; for the both of us. Life was hard. As a baby, she went through a lot and I think that's a good thing. I don't want her to ever remember the hardship we went through or go through it ever again. Abigail and I have different fathers. Without Abigail yet, it was just my mom, my big sister, my big and little brothers, and I. My mom had her first boyfriend and he was nice. The second one, not so much. A couple years went by and Abigail was born. I don't remember how I felt five years ago, I'm not sure I even had feelings or maybe I didn't knew how to think or how to perceive things. When Abigail was growing up, life for her was like paradise. We babied her until we couldn't baby her anymore. Abigail's dad spoiled her and as for the rest of us, we we're given things here and there but we were fine with it. It was understandable that Abigail was his daughter. Since he had been with my mom for awhile, he acted like a father figure although we never looked at him as a father. He had us on check. We had to check in if we were to go outside and play, we had to be in bed by ten, and we had to have manners. Growing up and becoming more observant, I didn't like him. In fact I hated him. Living with him was hell. But while I appreciate what he had taught us, the way he taught us was not acceptable. Constant yelling and telling what us what we had to do affected Abigail, in a bad way.

Abigail has manners, she says please and thank you all the time. She is growing up right. However, as she grew up, she would get in trouble like the rest of us too. Her dad was a drunk so he would yell and she would cry and as she grew up, that fear grew bigger and bigger. 

11 Nov. 2014

"I don't like yelling." My little sister is literally crying right now and she isn't even the one in trouble. My mom is yelling at my little brother to shower and clean his room. I don't know why it affected her?"

- Field notes

In "Parenting and Child Health," they say yelling can harm a child's feelings and can make them very afraid. That's exactly why Abigail cried. One of the family influence information said "if parents shout at children when they are angry the child can feel the parents' anger and it can make children fearful" (Wiley). She was in fear because of how her father always yelled.

Even though children tend to listen more when they feel like they are in trouble, children have feelings too. There are so many other ways to make a child listen, yelling is not one of them. It will forever make them fearful of everything. Including its own parents.

Wiley, John. "Parenting and Child Health." Women's and Children's Health Network. N.p. 8 Nov 2013. Web. 16 Nov 2014.

Definitely Growing Up

I don't know if it is just my little sister but she probably talks on the phone more than I do. It's not a doubt that influence is huge to her. It's also not a doubt that as children, all we want to do is grow up. A toy phone, a Chucky-Cheese medal, an AC remote, a calculator, a broken MP3 player, and everything small; she would use them as a phone.

This morning I was laying on the couch watching TV and she comes out of her room with her Frozen princess toy phone. She started talking. Being used to it, I figured she was "talking" to her friend. I have no idea what goes on through her head when she has the phone to her ear. 

She then says, "We're not going yet, we're not going yet. I'm waiting for my mom." My mother and her we're going to church when she said that. I kept listening. 

"No. I said I'm not going yet. Ughhhhh, listen to me." 

She gets the attitude from me. I asked her, "Abby, who are you talking to?" 

She said, "My friend, duh."

Talk about doubling the attitude. Recently, she started kindergarten and she's meeting all these new faces that she claim are her friends. When my friends come over, she has this habit of just watching us and staring at us and I think that's where she got "talking on the phone" and everything else she does that is familiar  from. Even when I'm by myself in my room and I'm talking to my friends on the phone, she would come inside to check up on me and see what I'm doing. Basically, everyone in my household talks on the phone. 

My little sister has the biggest imagination ever. THE BIGGEST. As I write this blog, my sister is sitting next to me. Clueless with what else to write, I thought maybe I should just ask her why she talks on the phone; her respond, "Because people text me and they want to talk to me all the time." 

I thought she would say something like "because you do it" or "because I see everyone else do it." I had no clue how she came up with "because people text/talk to me all the time." I mean, she uses a Chucky-Cheese medal as a phone for goodness sake. I was shocked. It's like she's really talking on the phone, like someone on the other line is talking back to her. It's crazy. I started searching the web about why children do adult things and I came across this website called "Supporting Make-Believe Play" and I saw one line that answered my question. This line said "at the age of 3-5, children have the idea of HOW to pretend but need ideas on WHAT to pretend." Talking on the phone was an idea of what to pretend and she knew exactly how to pretend that she was talking on the phone. Genius. 

I'm sure she does a lot of other things that she had seen us do other than talking on the phone. When I was little, I don't remember wanting to grow up and doing adult things like she does. Maybe I did do them, I just don't remember. But, why is it that when we're young we want to grow up so bad but when we get older we just want to go back to when we were young? Life is complicated and we contradict ourselves. I'm definitely going to remember this when she gets older and she tells me she wants to be young again. "Abby, I remember when you were like 5 years old. All you wanted to do was grow up. You used to pretend you would talk to your friends on the phone." I cannot wait. 

Deborah, Leong. "Supporting Make-Believe Play." Tools of the Mind. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Nov. 2014.

Changes

As children grow up, all we, as older people, really notice is their height changing, their shoe size becoming bigger, their clothes shrinking and we never realize how much they truly are changing; inside and out. As a big sister, I would have never imagined noticing every little detail about my younger sister. Well, considering that's not really expected for a big sister. There is so much life brings to us and with observing for awhile, I cannot fully say I know my sister like the back of my hand. There is always things changing: with her attitude, with her appearance, with the way she eats, the way she talks, the way she carries herself, even the way she snores. It is always different. It's understandable that I probably will never know my sister like the back of my hand, in fact I probably wouldn't even know myself like that. We all change, regardless of age. It just so happens that children change more often than we do, I mean they are growing up.

When we want to really get to know something or someone, we usually will ask questions or do some research, maybe even examine it. It's not that easy with children. We can't really ask them questions, what do they know? They are just curious as we are. We can research specific things that they have life freckles or birth marks and learn more about those. But I'm thinking deeper, I can't research why my sister chews as if it's the last time she's ever going to chew. I can't research why my sister knows big words like "frustrated." I can't research why she grabs anything that is shaped like a phone and puts in next to her ear. But I can research one thing that all these are branches to; influence. I truly think she eats the way she does because she sees the way my mom eats or even sees a random stranger eat that way. She probably knows words I would never expect her to know because she hears it from me or my other siblings. She's easily influenced by her surroundings and the people around her. Also, she watches a lot of TV, maybe she gets influenced by those shows too.