Share your joyful moments of parenting success here!

[mommamaree]

As parents, we all know how hard it can be at times to handle our children and train them up with proper social skills and etiquette. We often feel like failures, even though it is normal for it to be hard, whether it is the age of the child, the number of children, the temperament of our child, special needs which require extra attention, and so on.

So this thread is to share your joyful moments of parenting success, where you suddenly realize that you are doing your best and your best is good enough and your children and family and community see your efforts and appreciate them. I will start, and I hope to see all of your good stories added here!

Yesterday, I took all my four children (9, 6, 3, 1) out to a nicer restaurant for dinner, all by myself. My husband was on a trip, and we had cabin fever, so we just decided to go for it and have some fun. We took a portable “hang man” game board, and a couple of quiet electronic games, just in case. We dined on sushi, played games, and enjoyed multiple courses. It was fun, but still I was worried. I have been approached before on several occasions by people who believe children should be excluded from restaurants and church, and they were hurtful. But this time, when we were approached toward the end of our dinner, it was by an older man, who wanted to compliment my children on their behavior, and me, for my attentiveness to them. He said it was really nice to see how I took care of all my children. I was relieved and so thankful. I thanked him kindly and said it meant a lot to me that he stopped to say something so kind. Then, after he left, I told my kids how good they were being and how much fun I had been having with them.

All of that really made up for what happened when we went to the store next, and my 1yo was trying to climb out of her seat in the cart, and my 3yo was scooting across the floor on her bottom in the aisles!

 

[bitterhope]

Great job with your kids! It’s so hard going to restaurants with little ones.

Probably my proudest moment as a mom came when my 3 rd son got a good behavior award at school. Normally it would be nice, but this particular kid was a price of work! He had been so violent at times and flat out refused to be obedient to anyone except his own desires. Well, fast forward three years and everything began to click with him for some reason. He is now so kind and gentle. I no longer worry he will become a mass murderer (it was that bad…seriously). He is now the altar server that the priest prefers and asks for to serve weddings and funerals (I homeschool him so he’s available), he plays violin in the choir on weeks he’s not in the altar, and people now tell me he is so kind and gentle. It still shocks me at times because I never believed he would become such an awesome kid. They surprise us sometimes I guess. He got the good behavior award just before we moved the last time, right before I decided to homeschool him and one if the others. School just doesn’t work for all kids, especially moving so often. The teachers all saw such a big improvement in him that they voted unanimously for him.

Keep up the good work with your kids!

 

[Xantippe]

mommamaree said:

“We dined on sushi, played games, and enjoyed multiple courses. It was fun, but still I was worried. I have been approached before on several occasions by people who believe children should be excluded from restaurants and church, and they were hurtful. But this time, when we were approached toward the end of our dinner, it was by an older man, who wanted to compliment my children on their behavior, and me, for my attentiveness to them. He said it was really nice to see how I took care of all my children. I was relieved and so thankful. I thanked him kindly and said it meant a lot to me that he stopped to say something so kind. Then, after he left, I told my kids how good they were being and how much fun I had been having with them.”

Awww.

This is going to get a little braggy. Apologies.

1. My big kids periodically THANK me for their 1-year-old sister and enthuse over how cute she is. This is not something I remember doing when I was a big kid with a toddler sibling. They also ask to be allowed to go see her first thing in the morning.
2. My big kids pack their own lunches for school.
3. My big girl is finally starting to spontaneously decide that it’s time to take a bath.
4. My middle child is all dressed and packed for school at the crack of dawn (we’ve had to talk him into setting his alarm later).
5. My big girl recently did a city-wide academic contest, did four events, placed in all four, and got firsts in three. (This is a really big deal for us, as she’s given school a lot of grief over the years, so it’s really important to be making deposits in our bank of good will.)
6. The toddler is starting to understand a lot!
7. On car rides, my big girl likes to bring along stuffed horses to entertain the 1-year-old with. The kids are really good at keeping the toddler happy in the back seat on long car rides.
8. My big girl (age 11) has a sewing machine and sews and quilts! Her quilting is not always perfectly square, but she makes up for it in her freehand creativity. She’s sewed a little cushion with a crane stitched on it, a baby blanket with an applique horse, and she’s sewed a fleece Minecraft creeper.

instructables.com/id/Minecraft-Stuffed-Creeper-Doll/

She has sewed two different baby blankets for the toddler.

1. The big kids are actually very helpful with the toddler. I don’t press my luck with them (I want it to be fun for them to spend time with the toddler rather than grim duty), but they can do a lot.
2. The big kids are very proud of the toddler’s achievements and my middle child is very eager for the toddler to talk more.
3. Our oldest used to be fairly autistic, but over 5 or so years, she’s been improving more and more. The negative autistic features have faded a lot, leaving mostly just the positive ones and some attention, organizational and time management issues. She has friends, she has a fairly normal social life, she’s doing pretty well in school, and she has a lot of gender and age appropriate interests: horses, machine sewing, quilting, cooking, cake decorating, Minecraft, etc.
4. The big kids give me parenting pointers with regard to what I ought to be doing for the toddler (and they’re actually pretty good).

 

[bitterhope]

Xatippe,

I am really impressed, especially with your 11yr olds sewing. I sew and crochet and I enjoy it now, but at 11 I did not enjoy it one little bit. Encourage her to keep it up! It’s a great budget stretcher and also a wonderful stress relief.

And don’t you love it when they thank you for “their” baby? It always brings tears to my eyes when mine thank me for our babies, and it touches me even deeper when I hear of other families children doing so as well. Too often a new baby is seen as a bother. Absolutely beautiful job you are doing.

 

[Xantippe]

bitterhope said:

“I am really impressed, especially with your 11yr olds sewing. I sew and crochet and I enjoy it now, but at 11 I did not enjoy it one little bit. Encourage her to keep it up! It’s a great budget stretcher and also a wonderful stress relief.”

I think she appreciates the speed and efficiency of machine sewing as opposed to hand sewing.

I have to confess that we have outsourced her sewing lessons over the years, as I was pretty hopeless at it in my one quarter of 7th grade home ec. The cooking class also was outsourced, although I probably could have taught her if I had wanted to. It kind of cracks me up to hand over money to sign her up for a two 12-hour sewing camps in a single week, but she likes it, and I couldn’t teach. If this were Cambodia they’d pay me.

I’m kind of hoping she’ll be able to start sewing costumes for herself for school events and that could be a major money-saver.

Our general theory as parents has been to offer as many experiences as possible, particularly during the summer. It really blows my mind how people sweat over doing lots of extracurriculars during the school year (when kids are terribly busy and going to bed at all hours exhausted from homework) and then don’t have enough for them to do during the summer.

“And don’t you love it when they thank you for “their” baby? It always brings tears to my eyes when mine thank me for our babies, and it touches me even deeper when I hear of other families children doing so as well. Too often a new baby is seen as a bother. Absolutely beautiful job you are doing.”

The big kids are pretty clear on the baby being my baby, but I have gotten the feeling that my oldest feels that I need to learn to share. When the baby was smaller and we were in church and the big kids wanted to have her, they’d make a rocking gesture with their arms to ask for the baby. Our oldest finds the baby very distracting during church, as she wants to get up and scamper about with the baby.

This has all been very nice, as 1) I remember making a point of locking my invading toddler brother out of my room as a tween and 2) my oldest has not always been that sweet toward her younger brother. The usual is for big sister to alternate between a) ordering him around and b) telling him to go away and that he’s annoying. The baby, however, has generally been given a free pass from my big girl. But I try to make sure that the big kids get only as much baby sister as they can enjoy.

It helps a lot that the big kids are in school and so there’s a change in personnel at home exactly at that time (around 4 PM) when a lot of moms start getting frantic and climbing the walls. I remember 4PM being a lot tougher when my big kids were small and home all the time. These days, it’s no big deal. (Tfoo-tfoo.)

 

[Cat]

We had plenty of wonderful moments while the girls were growing up, but I have to say that the most joyful moments come when they are adults and thank us for being such good parents. Also, it’s awesome when they introduce us to their friends and acquaintances, and those people say, “I’ve heard a lot of wonderful things about you!”

 

[Xantippe]

Cat said:

“Also, it’s awesome when they introduce us to their friends and acquaintances, and those people say, “I’ve heard a lot of wonderful things about you!””

Awwww.