My parents took care of us, met our physical needs and even my intellectual needs, but there was physical and emotional abuse of me and my siblings. When I found out I was going to have a child, I made a commitment to myself and my child that I would never hit her/him or try to make myself feel better by making her/him feel bad, or put her/him down.

That was the foundation of everything. My son is a teenager now and I have never hit him, ever. I work to make sure that even when I am frustrated as is normal, that it is always within the context of parental love.

I also promised myself I would never lie to him. That one has not been so clear cut, as there are many little things we tell children, especially when they’re younger, just to quiet them down. Of course there were untrue things, but I do work to make sure it’s never anything extremely serious.

This goal has been on my mind because he just had his first “final exam” in school. I wanted to support him intellectually, but more importantly, I wanted to reassure him that he has the ability to study and learn and feel good about himself in this way. So we worked together and basically I taught him how to study a lot of material. So these days I am feeling like a pretty decent parent. :)