Are you falling in to the Child-Centered Parenting cycle?

What is Child-centered Parenting? Too often when a child arrives in a family, parents tend to forget about each other. All attention shifts to highlight the children, and the marriage seems to diminish. And most parents think this is normal and part of good parenting. But in reality, this shift offers devastating results. Not realizing that from the start, the family is starting to break apart. Children are treated as the center of the family universe. This type of parenting puts all other family relationships at risk.
 
With child-centered or mother-centered parenting, parents intensely pursue the child's happiness, taking great pains to avoid stress or emotional discomfort in the child's life. Certainly, who doesn't want a happy child whose life is stress free?


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How to Achieve Balance?
No one plans to be child-centered. Since infants are entirely dependent on parental care, their dependency creates for new parents a heightened gratification. What you need is a strategy for avoiding child-centered pitfalls. With a bit of effort, you can meet all your baby's needs while still maintaining life beyond baby.

Here are a few ideas to assist in achieving this balance:
1. Life doesn't stop once you have a baby. It may slow down for a few weeks, but it should not stop entirely. When you become a mother, you do not stop being a daughter, sister, a friend, or a wife. Those relationships, which were important before the baby, must still be maintained.

2. Date your spouse. If you had a weekly date night with your spouse before the baby, get back in the swing of it as soon as possible. A friend or relative is quite capable of meeting your child's needs. The baby will not suffer separation anxiety from one night without mom. If you have never had a date night, start now!

3. Continue those loving gestures you enjoyed before the baby came along. If you both enjoyed a special activity together, find a way to fit it in. If you buy a special something for your baby, select a little gift for your mate as well. In all that you do, treasure your spouse.

4. Invite some friends over for food and fellowship. Times of hospitality force you to plan your child's day around serving others as you work together to prepare your home for the guests.

5. At the end of each day, spend fifteen minutes sitting with your spouse discussing the day's events. This special "couch time", which takes place before children are in bed for the evening, acts as a visual expression of your togetherness. To help keep this time free of interruptions explain to your children: "This is Mommy and Daddy's special time together. Daddy will play with you afterward, but Mommy comes first." Children actually are assured of mom and dad's love relationship through this tangible demonstration. In addition, couch time genuinely assists couples in sharing their needs and concerns with each other.

Reference: Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam, M.D, On Becoming Baby Wise,p. 22 -23, p. 26 - 27.