When you were growing up, a database began to form inside of your mind and you labeled it something like "How I'm Going to Raise My Children Better" or maybe you called it "Things I'll Never Have My Children Do." Those were the glory days of your childhood. Even at an early age, you knew something better than the way it was, didn't you?



And now that you are a bit older and wiser, are those same dreams still in place? Have you been able to fully implement your childhood plan? I am quite confident that no matter how idyllic your childhood was (or was not), there will always come a time when you have to admit that it's not as easy to execute your childhood plans when it comes to raising children. My children taught me a lot and continue to do that regularly.

For the things that happened in your childhood that made you create that New Plan - what have you done about those things? Are they just sitting there in your mentality on simmer? Or maybe you toured inside the I of you to reason about what might have occurred to free yourself from it? It's this last sentence that I want to address in this article

Every single one of us has a basketful of childhood memories. The majority of them are pleasant and wonderful. Some are definitely not. And some are so non-eventful that we've completely forgotten them. I truly believe that unless you go back and take a look at both categories - the good and the not-so-good - you are going to drag your feelings about them into your current relationship with your children, and you might be super-imposing your bugaboos onto them innocently.

I'd recommend making two lists: Things I Liked in My Childhood and Things I Did Not Like About My Childhood. Writing has always been a great therapy for me and I've found it very effective. Give it a try. Write out what happened, how you felt about it, what you'd have done differently. The last thing you need to do is to write about forgiving the other person(s) involved so that you can let it go.

If writing isn't your style, try talking. Group therapy is good for this and you can easily find a therapist who bills on a sliding scale according to your income so that this is affordable. Or maybe you could choose an older, wiser friend to talk through this with so that at the end, you are left feeling free from your own bad feelings.

Another technique is 'thinking while walking or running.' Just pick one of the things from your list, work to keep your mind pointed at only that one thing until you've chewed it up and digested it mentally with a resultant sense of completion because you thought it all the way through.

Your children will pick up on your sense of animosity toward a parent or sibling. They will know all about anger from you. They will see your resentment. They can sense your hurt feelings. These aren't the kinds of inheritance you want to leave them in their childhood, so please consider becoming healthier and more solid within yourself. It's a wonderful gift to your children. You had a dream called "raise my children" better.