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Be a Great Mum: What is parenting confidence? Bringing up children is a joy and a challenge and it doesn’t stop when they have left home. Wondering if you are doing what ‘s best for your children and questioning your ability to know about everything from what to cook for tea to how to choose a school, or sorting out squabbles or running a birthday party is such a huge job. It’s not surprising it feels very overwhelming and knocks your confidence.
Be a Great Mum: What are your parenting values? Our values constantly drive our thoughts, feelings and behaviour. As parents, values create a moral code for us based on how we want to bring up our children. This informs how to behave towards our children and make decisions about what we believe is right or wrong.
Be a Great Mum: Managing family relationships Being a mother includes living in a family, not just bringing up children. Mothers are often at the heart of families, keeping tabs on everyone’s needs, running the home, and probably fitting in a job too. It’s easy for her own needs to come last when there is so much to do every day involving the heart, mind and body.
Be a Great Mum: Working mums All mothers work, but this is about the mums who are doing a paid job on top of being a mother. This is not about how to find the right job to combine motherhood and a career, but more about the complexities that come from doing two jobs, more like three if you have a relationship with a partner to maintain too.
Be a Great Mum: Taking care of you Mothers are brilliant at taking care of everyone’s needs except their own. It’s perceived to be quicker, easier and more rewarding to stay in the hamster wheel of meeting the needs of children, a partner, the house, the extended family, the neighbours, colleagues and even the pet goldfish than putting your own needs into the mix.
Be a Great Mum: Children's behaviour - it always makes sense Managing children’s behaviour is a large part of being a mum. Behaviour occurs to meet a need. A child is tired, the need is to sleep, but the behaviour might be obnoxious, and difficult to deal with. A child is bored, the need is for stimulation, but drawing on the wall or thumping a sibling is what the mother is left to sort out.
Be a Great Mum: Choosing childcare and education When you give birth to your first child it’s hard to imagine that one day you’ll need to find someone else to look after her and she will eventually go to school. Finding childcare worthy of your most precious gift is at best straightforward, but more likely to be challenging.
Be a Great Mum: Running a family In China they have a saying that no family can hang out a sign saying ‘Nothing the matter here’. Running a family is a very complex job, like sailing a ship, parts of it are controllable, but unforeseen elements can throw you off course, and it’s often the mum who is the captain keeping everything shipshape!
Be a Great Mum: Enjoy being a mum What does it take to create a happy childhood? We know that we have more material goods than in any previous generation, but does all that stuff create happiness?
Be a Great Mum: Being a full-time mother All mothers are full time – it’s a 24/7 job as your children are always somewhere in your heart and mind even if you go out to work all day. For mothers who don’t have any paid work, the job of being the primary carer of your children brings with it great delights and varying amounts of challenge.
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