Parenting- Stresses and Responsibility

Today, at the Missouri FCCLA State Leadership Conference 2014, Rene Howitt gave a presentation in one of our leadership sessions entitled “Changing Our Parenting Experiences”. One of her main focuses was about how as a parent you have to change your perspective about yourself and how you have to become a different type of leader. She talked a lot about how to be a good leader and how to be a bad leader. Good leaders have plans for the future and can see the consequences for their actions. Bad leaders have no clue what is going to happen tomorrow and don’t understand the consequences of their actions. Bad leaders don’t have a plan for their future. One of the quotes that she had found was “Where there is no vision, the people will perish”. This means that if there is no plan as to what the future will hold, people will not succeed in the future. After talking about being a leader she switched over to how to be a parent. When you become a parent, you can no longer be self-centered, self-absorbed, self-serving, or self-indulgent. You now have to be selfless. A lot of times, self-centeredness comes back within 48 hours of a baby being born. Babies and small children are much smarter than people actually think they are. They see what is happening around them and most of the time end up catching on. Little kids won’t talk about what they haven’t seen or heard. Ask any preschool or kindergarten teacher about a child and they can tell you what is happening in that child’s home. Kids talk about what they know and they don’t know if something is good or bad. The main thing she wanted the students to get out of her session was to understand that it is your choice if you become a parent or not and she wanted them to think about parenting. Contributed by Aubrie Dial, 2014 Media Team Member