Guest Author No. 2 - Mrs. Nicole Hall
(Week 4 of 4)

Continued Transcript From Our Guest Author Parenting Interview With Mrs. Nicole Hall

Welcome back to the second installment of our second Parenting Interview with our Guest Author Mrs. Nicole Hall.

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Decisions on how YOU raise YOUR children are left wholly up to you and to your parental wisdom and personal discretion.

And now, without further ado, let’s return to the our second Parenting Interview with our current Guest Author, Mrs. Nicole Hall.

PTTPAG – Do you see any drawbacks to somebody other than the mother being the primary care giver and the primary director of beliefs and values during the daytime hours, which is the majority of the waking hours of a young child’s life?

Nicole – I do. I am a huge believer that if the mother is healthy and mentally stable, that there is no one that can take her place.

Rachel and I take a mommy-and-me class once a week, and in the class our teacher always says that she can tell who is being raised in their home and by their mother, or who is having to be raised by someone else.

The teacher points out some differences; the child that is forced to be in day care all day has a ‘fight or flight’ type of attitude where it’s kind of like a survival thing. It’s like, “I’m going to get what I need because I have to stick up for myself”, rather than having other coping strategies that they have learned.

PTTPAG – Any words or encouragement to single moms, if you could do a shout out to single moms everywhere?

Nicole – Oh man. I really look up to you because you can do it! You are in a situation where you have a great, great opportunity to influence your child and only you can have that, because it’s only you. I would just say to definitely rely on instinct, do the best you can, and you will be compensated; it will be ok.

PTTPAG – If you could wave a magic wand and change one aspect of the parenting experience, change something about the ‘parenting rules of the road’ as it were, what would you change?

Nicole – I realize that there are a lot of times during the day where I have to say “No”. A lot of times. And so that really starts to bother me when she is saying, “I want to get this out” or “I want to do this” or “can we do this?” and I’m saying “No” for certain, important reasons but I would change that.

Somehow I would have her be able to have an even amount of “Yes” to an even amount of “No” and be smooth like that.

PTTPAG – What two or three parenting qualities do you feel are absolutely necessary in order to be a successful parent?

Nicole – Compassion and Consistency.

I just think of how I would feel if I had things in my mind but couldn’t always act or talk those things out. I can see how frustrating that would be and I think that is a lot of the clash that happens between a parent and a child because the communication isn’t there.

So if you can have compassion and realize that a lot of stuff is going on in their little world, that I (as the parent) don’t understand right now, I think that smoothes a lot of hard things over.

One more thing about compassion; if you can just understand how you feel when someone understands you, and you feel like they care, that totally helps make it all better.

For consistency I would say, it just affects so much of their lives. If they hear you say something, and you follow through and you are consistent with that, that helps them to apply that talent, or that quality in their life too.

A lot of times it’s hard though to be consistent because there’s exceptions, and times in your life when you’re like, “Oh, I shouldn’t have said that”.

I think that consistency is a very important quality.

PTTPAG – Does you two year old daughter have any issues with temper tantrums, or not quite yet?

Nicole – She’s not getting into it yet. She knows how to cry on the floor, but a lot of times it will just be quick. I’m not looking forward to that though.

PTTPAG – Following are some of the most common parenting questions asked by parents everywhere. We would love to get your perspective on some of them. So here goes – My kids are always fighting; how do I handle sibling rivalry?

Nicole – I would try to be present and would encourage my children to talk it out with themselves, but not try to be the solver myself. I want them to solve it for themselves.

PTTPAG – My child is being bullied at school; what do I do?

Nicole – That’s hard. I have a friend who just had this problem. She was telling me, and I agree, that she tried to talk honestly and openly about what her child might have been doing to make him be bullied, what was the bully doing, and tried to do as much on their own without involving a teacher or the school principle.

It got to the point where they needed to involve someone higher and it worked out once that happened.

PTTPAG – My child is telling me lies; what should I do?

Nicole – That’s very hard. I can see it, and I did it when I was young, that when I could see that my parents cared, and they took the time to talk to me about whatever it was that was happening, that eventually we came to a conclusion and it worked out.

Communication with my parents, who really wanted me to open up to them, and tell them why, and tell them the truth, I could take a step back and then do the right thing.

I remember that my motivation for lying when I was younger was embarrassment. My parents disciplined by disappointment rather than by lecturing or anything, and so I was SO embarrassed when I knew I had done something wrong that I would want to lie about it and not really fix it.

PTTPAG – How do I keep my child from drinking, smoking, taking drugs, and engaging in pre-marital sex?

Nicole – I think of three things that come to my mind.

Number one is by example, and I mean not even go there at all, not even casual drinking. To a child or to a preteen, there’s really no boundary. You are either doing it or you’re not, and it’s black and white. So I would say by example.

Second, things that come into your home through the TV or the media, you can definitely filter that and teach them the right and wrong about that.

The third thing is to have your children engaged in plenty of worthwhile causes that help them to realize the good things in life rather than the things that are addicting or that ruin it (life).

PTTPAG – When do you start talking to your child about sex?

Nicole – Before their class mates do. Also, a person whom I respect has said between the ages of 7 and 8. Even though they may not be hearing it at school, they soon will.

PTTPAG – My family is always so busy, so how do I stay involved with my children and find the time to connect with them?

Nicole – You need to make the most of the times that you have together. If you are all at home, rather than flip on the TV, take the time to make it a good time and talk. Talk around the dinner table. Any chances you get to do that; make the most of it.

PTTPAG – These next questions revolve around the lighter side of parenting. If you could take a family vacation to any place in the world, all expenses paid, where would you go and what would you want to see and do, and why?

Nicole – Let’s see . . . You’ve stumped me – I’m going to pass on this one.

PTTPAG – Why is it that those who offer the most parenting advise are those people who don’t actually have children?

Hubby – When we were pregnant with our first daughter we started cluing in on that fact that those without children have so much to say about how they should be raised.

We would see parents doing something and we would disagree with what they were doing. We started looking at each other and saying, “I don’t know why they’re doing that, but I want to know why?”

Because they’ve been through something that we haven’t, and there is a reason they’re doing that. We recognized that there is a reason for why the parents were doing what we disagreed with, and that we just didn’t know what it was? We did this instead of saying “My kids are never going to do that”.

PTTPAG – If these childless advise givers were able to magically become parents for a week or two, like a scene from the movies, what great epiphany or realization do you think would come to them about the world of parenting?

Nicole – That there are one thousand answers to one question. That parenting is not cut and dry.

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