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Copyright (c) 2009 Lome Aseron

There are many resources available to help you understand how to give your baby a bath and when to start feeding solids, but do you know how to get the most out of being a father? Here are my top 10 (or at least the first five suggestions) to make the most of it.

1) Recognize that fatherhood is your personal development. If we all being a father was a person with little to play ball with and an extra mouth to feed, it would be a very raw deal. Being a father is all about challenges and how we handle these challenges. You’ll grow as much (if not more) than your child – in the right direction. Development as a person is an important part of being a dad.

2) Clean your relationship with your partner. Having a healthy relationship with your partner is essential to get the most out of being a father. Let me repeat. Having a healthy relationship with your partner is essential to get the most out of being a father. You will not enjoy the journey of parenthood, if you’re constantly in conflict with their other parent. You do not stay in a situation gone wrong, but you must find a way to make peace with the other most important person in your child’s life.

3) Bring your relationship with your father. It’s hard enough being a father without having to fight through the emotional baggage of a dysfunctional relationship with your own father. Reconciling your relationship with your own father does not necessarily require drastic measures, only a commitment to finding peace around some emotional pain you might feel. And we all feel some sort of pain around our parents. Someone told me that since we can not forgive our parents, we can not grow. And does the world really need more fathers who need to grow.

4) forgive. You’ve probably already done what you consider to be your first “mistake” as a father. If you do not, you can start paying more attention. I do not want an I-put-layer – on-back type of error. I mean losing your cool, make a decision about your child who has not quite the way you designed it. I used to resent my son when he awoke in the middle of the night, not so much because I was losing sleep, but because it reminded me how much my life had changed, how the life I had before was over. As soon as I forgive myself for feeling that way, I stopped resisting the interruption of nighttime awakenings. Hey, you’re going to be a father for a while, so give yourself a break.

5) Take 100% responsibility for the choices you make. We generally avoid responsibility, because we tend to assimilate to blame. If I was forced to choose the best gift of fatherhood, I would say that we do to stop the unloading of our choices in life to other people in our lives. When it comes down to it, your child will have one in your life, so there is no escaping the fact that you are when it comes to their male role model. Your son or daughter (hopefully) have more of a male influence, but they will all take a back seat to you. You will be the standard by which men in her life will be measured over a long period. You have the responsibility, so you might as well own it 100%.

In this last article you were given seven manipulative and controlling strategies some mothers will come up with to get her son or daughter to do what they want. Some mothers may not want these tactics revealed because they have used them a long time and they work! However, if anyone (not just a mother) has to resort to such tactics to get her son or daughter to do something for them, then we can fairly assume that she doesn’t have a very good relationship with her children and she should sincerely seek help, find a better way to communicate her needs, or simply back off and let them do for her as they see fit and not the other way around. She may even need to consider finding someone else to tend to her needs if her children don’t. Seven additional tactics are as follows. This is part two of the first article.
Seven. Your mother, mother-in-law or stepmother may say things that you or someone else didn’t say to get attention.
Like a child, it doesn’t matter what kind of attention they want from their parents just so long as they can get you to look, your mother may be doing the same thing. Stories of robbery, conflicts with relatives and neighbors, and other similar “front page” news dramas fall quickly from her lips when she doesn’t want you to find out a truth about her. You see, if you know the truth, she fears you might not want to come around anymore, so sometimes to get negative attention off of her while gaining a positive image, she will try to get you to focus on someone else while she comes up with yet another scheme to control you.
The best way to counter against this tactic is to provide proof when she lies and remind her that you will not talk or come around her if she feels she has to disrespect you to get you to do what she wants.
Eight. She will argue or threaten.
Sometimes she may not have the energy to orchestrate a plan to get you to do what she wants so she will just yell at you. She may even call you a few names or threaten to do something to you if you don’t listen. You can avoid her future outburst by giving her a long time out and if she said or did some really bad things to you and your family, put your foot down and cut her off. Mothers like to talk about the biblical scriptures that say “Honor thy mother. . . ” Exodus 20:12 but what they fail to do is find the scripture that talks about “And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” Ephesians 6:1-4. ” There are some mothers who act in the role of fathers and do just that!
Nine. She will use others to influence you when she can’t get you to do what she wants (ie. partner, siblings, childhood friends, etc. )
She has enough time on her hands to converse with those that know you and she will tell them things like, “He never wants to be a part of the family. We use to be so close! His wife is causing him not to come around us anymore. Why don’t you call your brother and check up on him? Tell her I’m sick and need for her to come over and help me. ” What you can do is tell these people she has used to get you to act on her command to stop sending you her messages. Don’t open the doors to any debate with them about your actions, what your mother has been known to do, or anything else that could potentially cause a rift in your relationship. Rather, allow them to see your mother’s manipulative strategies on their own. However, with your partner you may want to be more specific about some of the things she does so that he or she isn’t blindsided.
Ten. She will cry.
Tears will bring a giant to his knees depending on how well they are used. She may get on her soapbox and put on her best act to get you to come over and cry with her until she breaks you down enough to get you to do what she wants. If you fall for it, then she wins and you lose. You can get her to dry those tears up even faster than saying yes, try saying no while walking away. Watch how her sad face becomes angry almost monster like.
Eleven. She will talk negatively behind your back to the biggest mouth in the family hoping he or she will spread your personal issues to everyone.
This tactic was mentioned earlier when it comes to siblings and strangers, but some mothers will use this when they know you are a private person. She thinks she can really get you to do as you’re told if she starts sharing your life with others. If she chooses to do this, you can tell her that you are aware of what she is doing and you would like for her to stop. She may continue to run her mouth, you have a choice either you keep giving her something to talk about or you cut the lines of communication off not only with her but those you know will go back and talk with her about you.
Twelve. She will offer small tokens of appreciation or give you money.
Sometimes being kind and expressing words of flattery is the best way for a mother to get what she wants from her son or daughter. So she suddenly becomes real nice and she wants to do a lot of wonderful things for you of course you have every right to question it. You may want to find out if she is doing anything to help her become a better person. If not, find out what she is hoping you will do for her in the coming days, weeks or months. What are her needs? Chances are she is getting you to commit to something by using sweet tactics without you knowing what that “something” is.
Thirteen. She will provide a little information to get you to open up and talk then later use the information you gave her to work to her advantage.
How can anyone turn down an opportunity to sit down and talk with his or her mother? It sounds innocent enough and you may go along with it. You are feeling comfortable and then gradually you start opening up to her about personal and professional issues. You walk away from that pleasant moment feeling great until the following week you hear that she was talking badly about you to others. She even mentioned how much food you ate and how you didn’t even bother to leave any money for her. Not only that, you find out that she has retold your conversation to a few choice family member s you simply don’t like. Could it be that this was her sneaky way to pay you back for putting your foot down a couple weeks back about something she said or did that offended you? It just might be. If so, you will definitely need to think twice about taking her up on offers to sit and dine with her.
Fourteen. She will turn your father against you.
Fathers are just as important as mothers, if not more, especially in father and son relationships. A son wants to know that his father is proud of him. But a mother who is looking to get some things done around the house on her time schedule or has some other needs that she isn’t receiving from her husband, will purposely say things to the father about the son or daughter that he or she knows will make him angry. Just when the father is becoming close to his daughter or son, here she comes reminding him of the time their child did “this” or did “that. ” In the mother’s mind, she feels that if she can keep the child close to her, she will be able to get the things done that she wants he or she to do; therefore, having her own personal servant.
In closing, there are good and bad mothers in this world and either one or the other is talked about in many books, talk shows and other places. But there is also the sneaky mother also known as controlling, manipulative, wicked, and other words that describe negative practices she uses to get what she wants. These are the mothers that can kill, steal, and destroy what makes you happy. Oftentimes these mothers aren’t happy themselves just claim to be. They usually don’t have much going in their lives other than talking on the phone about other people, they have very few true friends, and it seems just about every week they are in conflict with someone. What brings them joy in life is seeking the attention from their children in whatever way they can get it by any means necessary. When you know you have a mother such as this, try your best to always stand up for what you believe in, not what she believes. Also, try very hard not to rely on her for anything and if you can, move far away from her, and visit her when you want to, not because she says that you should. If you follow these tips you can lessen the burden on your heart and mind concerning your mother and give your partner’s and friend’s ears a break from your “my mother” stories!