Challenges of Parenting and Family Interview PDF

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Challenges of Parenting and Family Interview Kayla Owens Grand Canyon University- SOC 320 July 24, 2021

Being a parent is an experience that many go through and handle differently. A lot of parents have “grown” with their children and learned the different ins and outs as the child gets older. There is no written handbook that teaches you how to be a parent, which is why hearing other parents' experiences helps gain insight to what you would do in different situations. In this paper, we will summarize the responses from a pregnant mom whose daughter is an only child, currently. We started the interview discussing the needs and demands of her daughter. The needs start with structure. Mom believes that creating a solid structure in the home will help to mold the daughter into a woman. Mom also mentioned having a positive home and role models in daughter’s life. We talked about a village and how she has made sure the village around her daughter for the last seven years has been nothing but strong, independent women. People who will encourage her and feed her mind, body and spirit. Mom recognizes that since she’s been pregnant, daughter needs/ wants more attention, and she has been practicing making sure that her daughter won’t feel left behind when the new baby comes. A demand for mom is making sure that she feeds into her daughter’s creativity and continues to put into action the dreams her daughter has. The daughter is already a mini-CEO and mom feels that catering to the daughter’s goals will continue to mold her and motivate her. When we talked about motivation, it opened the door to challenges. Mom feels her biggest challenge is daughter’s mood and behaviors. It’s important to her to make sure she is mindful with the way she disciples her child to steer clear from any type of emotional and verbal abuse. Mom says that she is very careful, more now than before, with her discipline. She knows her parenting style and knows that the effect of her parenting affects the reactions (Morin,2019).

Some of the discipline includes punishment, which would be time without a TV or tablet, or even writing out what she did wrong 40-100 times. Mom has also spanked her daughter occasionally when daughter does something drastic and out of character. With her daughter being seven, she is really coming into the world. YouTube has had a huge effect on her mood and her reactions. Mom talks about how her child is an influencer but also gets influenced by children on YouTube, and sometimes, that influence isn’t a positive one. The biggest challenge is separating the negative from the positive when the daughter is paying attention to the other children around her and children from around the world on YouTube. When you have challenges, you have to turn it into strategies so the negative can easily turn into positive. Mom has been implementing new strategies to help daughter. Her newest strategy is a point system that mirrors what is in her classroom at school. Daily, the daughter can earn points for different things and behaviors. Points can be earned by reading, good behavior, having quiet time, following instructions and passing assignments in school. The points fall into a reward tier, which allows the daughter to be in more control of her time and express some more fun things that she may like to do. The reward tiers have incentives like movies, engaging in outdoor activities like playing in the pool and trampoline, spending a certain amount in the store of her choice, tablet time for the whole weekend, etc. Points can also be taken away and accumulate a negative balance. Those are things like, not cleaning up after herself, negative conduct in school, talking back, being untruthful and hitting others. When in the arrears with points, she doesn’t have access to the rewards. The point system refreshes every week which allows the daughter to learn from mistakes if any and not dwell on them. It shows her that good behavior can come from a reward and bad behavior takes away from that. Mom feels like this

strategy gets her ready for the real world and helps her to have manners when not in mom's presence. In 2016, the U.S. made a recovery from the previous economic crisis (Howe, 2018). When the COVID-19 pandemic happened in 2020, a lot of families had economic struggles. Fortunately for mom, both she and dad were still fully employed. They haven’t faced any challenges. The government has actually helped bring additional funding to their home in multiple forms. Dad works two jobs to support mom and daughter’s additional wants outside of the household bills. Mom has been employed by the state for over 5 years and has received multiple raises and bonuses that also aid in their household income. As a middle-class family, mom is teaching her daughter how to handle bills, money management tips, and even building credit. Though they are happy as a middle-class family, everyone wants to grow and expand. Dad has a tee-shirt business on the side, which has taught the daughter skills of entrepreneurship, and has added value to his parenting role (Perrone, 2014). Mom talks about the goals that she has for their daughter and how, with the current marketing, they are expected to triple the business income over the next 5 years. Financial security is important and having multiple streams of income allows for Mom to have different saving structures and create a rainy-day fund, as well as a travel fund and a fun fund. I enjoyed the interview with this mom and when we concluded, I asked her to give advice to new parents as well as current. Mom’s biggest piece of advice was to just take it one day at a time, as well as be agile and ready to adjust at the drop of a dime. I also gave Mom advice and would give this advice to any parent. That advice is to lead with love, learn to live and live to let go. As a parent myself, I whole heartedly agree with the way she parents and look forward to following in similar footsteps.

References:

Howe, T. R. (2018). Marriages & families in the 21st century (2nd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. ISBN-13: 9781506340968. http://www.gcumedia.com/digitalresources/sage/2017/marriages-and-families-in-the-21st-century_a-bioecologicalapproach_2e.php Morin, A. (2019). 4 Types of Parenting Styles and Their Effects on Kids. https://www.verywellfamily.com/types-of-parenting-styles-1095045 Perrone, M. K. M., Wright, S. L., Howell, D. S., & Barnum, E. L. (2014). Contextual Influences on Work and Family Roles: Gender, Culture, and Socioeconomic Factors. Career Development Quarterly, 62(1), 21–28. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1002/j.2161-0045.2014.00067.x...