Parenting is no small task. There's no defined line of right or wrong, most moms and dads go abouts raising their children hoping for the best for each of them. Hubby and I included.
Being raised from two different families, two different countries with distinct cultures, it's not easy to combine our past experiences as a child into parenting our little Miss Kiki. One day I would think that hubby doesn't have enough patience, other days he thinks I'm too easy going, or vice versa. Each of us have strength in different things. We do our best to play it to our advantage.
There's an incident, though, a few days ago which inspired me to write this post. Miss Kiki and I had been sick for about 2 weeks and the doctor gave us antibiotics. Where we are right now, they don't sell antibiotics in sweet suspension form that they do in Canada. Medicine here is given in powder form, to be mixed with about a teaspoon of water and you're supposed to make your child drink it no matter what.
Growing up with such medicine, I've seen countless children refused to take their medicine, and equal amounts of parents just pretty much forcing it in the kids mouth. I expected to do the same for Miss Kiki. It's for her own good, I thought.
The first time we gave her, she tried it and of course, rejected it. I was just going to force it in while Sergei insisted that we keep giving her options. You take it nicely, or we force it down your throat. You are taking it in regardless. I was losing patience at the time but let him do it anyways, thinking that a little 2 year old won't accept reasoning or lousy options, and that hubby will give up soon. Boy, was I ever wrong!
Even though we had to force in the first dose, she actually opened up her mouth for the following ones! We simply tell her that she can either take it nicely and make us happy or we can force her to take it. All the medicines are done now, she took her last dose at lunch today.
When I think about this, if it were just me, I would have had to fight with her 3 times per day until she finished her medicines. If it weren't for hubby, there would've been a lot of tears, screaming, and frustrations. So what I learnt now is that even when you think your spouse is not doing something the 'right' way (ie. not how you want it), you should let him/her be and the result might me surprising :)
Being raised from two different families, two different countries with distinct cultures, it's not easy to combine our past experiences as a child into parenting our little Miss Kiki. One day I would think that hubby doesn't have enough patience, other days he thinks I'm too easy going, or vice versa. Each of us have strength in different things. We do our best to play it to our advantage.
There's an incident, though, a few days ago which inspired me to write this post. Miss Kiki and I had been sick for about 2 weeks and the doctor gave us antibiotics. Where we are right now, they don't sell antibiotics in sweet suspension form that they do in Canada. Medicine here is given in powder form, to be mixed with about a teaspoon of water and you're supposed to make your child drink it no matter what.
Growing up with such medicine, I've seen countless children refused to take their medicine, and equal amounts of parents just pretty much forcing it in the kids mouth. I expected to do the same for Miss Kiki. It's for her own good, I thought.
The first time we gave her, she tried it and of course, rejected it. I was just going to force it in while Sergei insisted that we keep giving her options. You take it nicely, or we force it down your throat. You are taking it in regardless. I was losing patience at the time but let him do it anyways, thinking that a little 2 year old won't accept reasoning or lousy options, and that hubby will give up soon. Boy, was I ever wrong!
Even though we had to force in the first dose, she actually opened up her mouth for the following ones! We simply tell her that she can either take it nicely and make us happy or we can force her to take it. All the medicines are done now, she took her last dose at lunch today.
When I think about this, if it were just me, I would have had to fight with her 3 times per day until she finished her medicines. If it weren't for hubby, there would've been a lot of tears, screaming, and frustrations. So what I learnt now is that even when you think your spouse is not doing something the 'right' way (ie. not how you want it), you should let him/her be and the result might me surprising :)
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