GENTLE PARENTING MY FOOT! - by Jemima Lawal

About an hour or so ago my daughter just chop beating. Yes, I whooped her. 😂😂 "But she's three. She's just a baby." Na from small e dey start. I grew up in a financially comfortable family but I wasn't spoiled at all. In fact, my parents were strict. Up until about age 21 or so, I could barely even leave my house without feeling like it was a crime. 😂 Listen, I'm not saying gentle parenting is bad. But for my parenting style, I try to find the balance between strict, disciplinarian parenting and gentle parenting. Because I think we sometimes forget that there is a difference between being gentle with a child and allowing a child to do whatever they want. My parents didn't beat every single mistake out of us. There were rules. There were consequences. There were things we simply knew we weren't supposed to do because if we did them, we would hear about it. 😂 And honestly, I think some of that helped shape our character. Was everything my parents did perfect? Absolutely not. There are things I would never repeat with my own child. But I also don't want to throw away everything they taught me just because parenting has evolved. We didn't get away with this much when we were younger. Children these days can literally do the most outrageous things and everybody will just laugh because, "She's still a baby. She doesn't know what she's doing yet." At what point does she start knowing? Because one day she's three and you're laughing. Then she's six and you're still laughing. Then she's ten and you're wondering where this child got this attitude from. 😂 My rules with raising my daughter are simple. She's spoiled. But not rotten. I want her to have nice things. I want her to enjoy her childhood. I want her to know that she is loved. I want her to feel safe enough to come to me when something is wrong. But I also want her to understand that the world has consequences. Early enough in life, I started teaching her that there's something called consequences. One day my daughter just bit me. Ah! I nearly cried. 😂 I know she's a toddler and toddlers do things without thinking. So I bit her back. Not enough to leave a mark or hurt her badly, but enough for her to understand that biting people comes with consequences. She looked at me like I had betrayed her entire bloodline. 😭 And honestly, I think she got the message. If she thinks of biting someone out there, she'll also think about how they might bite her back and the pain involved in that process. Another time she slapped my face. I thumped her little cheek in return. The way she reacted before she started crying was hilarious. 😂 She just froze. Her eyes widened like she had just discovered a new law of physics. I don't think I've ever actually seen a child that small widen their eyes like that outside TikTok videos. 😭 But that's the thing. I'm not trying to raise a child who is scared of me. I don't want my daughter trembling whenever she hears my footsteps. I want her to love me. I want her to trust me. But I also want her to know that mummy is not her mate. 😂 There are boundaries. There are things you don't do. There are things you don't say. And there are consequences when you cross certain lines. I think sometimes we make parenting sound like you have to choose one side. Either you're the strict parent whose child is afraid to breathe around them, or you're the gentle parent whose child is apparently allowed to redecorate the walls with crayons because "they're expressing themselves." Maybe there is another option. Maybe you can be soft without being permissive. Maybe you can discipline without humiliating your child. Maybe you can say no without making your child feel unloved. Maybe you can explain why something is wrong and still enforce a consequence when they do it again. Because children are not stupid. They're small. There's a difference. They may not understand everything yet, but they are learning. Every day they're learning what they can do, what they can't do, how people respond to them, how to treat other people and how other people should treat them. And I think part of our job as parents is to help them learn those things before the world teaches them in much harsher ways. My daughter is still very much a baby to me. She'll probably always be my baby. But she is also a tiny human being who is slowly becoming her own person. And I don't want to raise her to believe that being loved means getting everything she wants. I want her to know that sometimes love says yes. Sometimes love says no. Sometimes love explains. Sometimes love corrects. And sometimes love says, "Don't do that again." Parenthood shouldn't be a strict parenting versus gentle parenting competition. We're all just trying to raise human beings who won't grow up and make everybody else's lives miserable. 😂 Find the balance that works for you and your child. Because honestly, nobody gave us a manual. We're just here trying not to raise spoiled little dictators. And at the end of the day, we can only pray for God's help in raising our children and building a good home.

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