Parent Interview

Introduction
Teach people correct principles and then let them govern themselves. This quote from the prophet Joseph Smith concerning his ability to raise such a righteous group of people in Nauvoo became a motto for my parents as they raised their righteous generation. I was fortunate enough to interview my father on his feelings on teaching and parenting. The interview was only occasionally interrupted by my mother chiming in with a story or a reference, but always with good advice. The main theme throughout the interview was consistency with decisions whether in consequences, traditions, or their living example.
Analysis of the interview
I interviewed my father. He is the father of six children each of who have proven themselves to be good upstanding citizens and church members. He is an authoritative parent, but thinks of himself as passive. The interview took place over the phone. I kept a record of the interview on a notepad, and an audio record has also been kept.
Being a child of such good parents allows me to see what a parent can accomplish when they keep their mind on it. My parents both have been wonderful and conscientious about the way they raised their children. My father said that even though he thought long and hard about what he would do when he was a father, things never seemed to work out the same way in real life. The principle here is that he was trying to do his best. He talked about Santa Clause, sport teams, and doing homework as examples of things they worried about before ever getting into a situation where a decision would have to be made.
The Santa Clause idea is a really telling thought that my father expressed. There was a fad that was going around where parents felt like teaching their children about Santa Clause was lying and the child would resent that later in life. My parents were very conscious of the arguments, discussed the possibilities, and then decided to not tell, but not lie about Santa Clause to my oldest sister. My father said they worried much more about my oldest sister than the rest of their children. When asked if that meant they felt they had parented her better than the rest of the children my father said no. He told me that you have to try harder with the first child, but there are more mistakes made along the way.
My father is a firm believer in the idea of children being innately good. He told me that he learned that from his mother. He asked her one time why he does not ever remember being disciplined by either of his parents. His mother’s response was that she just had good kids, so she never needed to discipline them. Of course this is not completely true, but it is a good way of saying that children are not just a blank slate, but they have a strong personality as well which comes innately good.
I asked my parents what they did to prepare to be parents or improve their parenting skills. I asked this question because I remember my mother always saying things like “they always say…” to which we would respond “who are ‘they’?” The ‘they’ she was talking about was the authors of the books she had read. Looking at it now I am pretty impressed that she was able to read through many of these available books. She told me at one point she was going to break down with stress over her first two kids. She really felt like she should read some of the new parenting help books but also felt like reading her scriptures was even more important. She said she was told, in response to a prayer, that if she would study the scriptures as her manual, that the rest would be overcome.
I was surprised to hear my dad say that control can only come from punishment with kids. I do not think that is the way we lived as children, but that was his first reaction. We talked about how he never used the term ‘grounded,’ although, we probably had the same punishment. He said that reasoning is great with kids until you run out of time. His main and final point I will have to quote because I feel like it really summed up their consistent method of teaching. My father said “You get more mileage from promoting good behavior than punishing bad behavior.
The concept of consequences being right seemed to be a big topic for both of my parents. They felt like it was something they truly believed in, but did not learn to do it very well. They tried to come up with good consequences through spouse discussions, but it was too easy to do things like take away the toy, or any other negative consequence. They found that it is really hard to find natural, non contrived consequences that fit the crime. My mom told me that they hated missing the school bus for example because it punished her more than the child since she would have to drive them to school. She decided that if they missed the bus again they would have to find their own ride to school. Fortunately we must not have ever missed the bus after that since we never had to find a ride, but the consequences did fit the crime. They found that it was mostly just important to be consistent with their disciplining and most of the problems went away.
My parent’s final words of advice were to learn as you go, keep your eyes open, and try to do what’s right and that you will get more answers from Heavenly Father than you ever thought you would.
Application of information
The most I learned from this interview was the importance of consistency in raising children. Children need to know where the line will be whether they are one to try to push across it or not. If a parent is moving their decisions all over the place the child will not have a sure foundation to stand on.
I learned that I have great parents and grandparents. The reason this is something I can apply is that I have the confidence in myself to be a great parent because of it. They have taught me very well and I appreciate it. I believe in my ability because of my legacy.
I feel like when I have a family I will be able to discipline them correctly and put them in their place without any verbal, physical, or emotional lashing out. I believe in the power of incentives and see that as a solution to these problems.
I learned that consistency makes the daily tasks bearable and expected from children. It gives them something they can be successful at. Things like fasting can teach self discipline as well. Working like this with preparation can be a great help to my children.
My Plan of Action
I plan to make very few changes to the way my parents parented. I really liked their method of having a plan of action and carrying it out with consistency. I would like to continue most all of my family’s traditions, especially things like early morning scripture study and Sunday stations-an organized activity set. I would like to have these types of activities be a genuine part of my parenting.
I would like to be a very authoritarian parent. According to the book Strengthening Our Families, I would have a connection, but consistent regulation, and purposeful autonomy. I hope to provide the necessary environment where that can grow.
I want to celebrate with my children each of their successes. My family always eats ice-cream when we were going to celebrate, but I think there should be some sort of traditional congratulations I will be able to do for my child.
I would like to change one thing my parents did. I realized talking to them about chores around the house that there must be a better way to do them. I feel like part of the reason I didn’t like chores was because I did not really see any result from what I did. I would have to clean the same thing every week for example whether it was clean or not. I feel like I would have been much more willing if I was able to see a difference from what I did.
Conclusion
My parents were not perfect in any way, but I feel like they are near perfect. They have become more unified by having kids and then having them all goes away. I feel like the key to good parenting is just to love your children and keep your promises. Be consistent and the things which should happen will happen and in the best possible way.