Learning parenting skills from Caillou

I saw this article a couple of weeks ago: Great Moms Pass Parenting Skills to Daughters. Well, there's nothing very earth-shattering in that title; it's what common sense would have told us anyway, but now researchers are putting numbers to it so that it's more than just anecdotal common sense.

Although this article/research focused on positive parental behaviors, the lead researcher noted:

Numerous studies have found that negative parenting behavior, such as harsh discipline or even child abuse, is often transmitted across generations.

I think this is why I find being a good mother such a struggle for me. I didn't have a good model, and I have to fight off my initial reactionary behavior. I have known for a long time that my mom for the most part failed me as a mother, but after I read the article, I started to think about exactly what I remembered of her as a mother. I don't have any childhood memories of warm moments with my mother. I feel sure that there must have been times where surely she hugged me, or loved me, but I don't recall anything. Nothing. Were there any happy moments? Surely she must have loved me when I was a baby; supposedly I was a very easy baby who slept through the night almost right away (although I recently found out that my Dad wanted me to cry it out at 4 weeks; he had little tolerance for waking up at night, albeit infrequently). I supposedly played independently even as an infant, but now that I am a mother, I wonder if that meant I had no choice but to learn to be independent. How much did my parents interact with me? Maybe being an "easy" baby meant that I was easily ignored.

What memories of my mom do I have? I remember making my bed when I was about 4 years old and showing her proudly. Once she saw my bed she gave some verbal indication that I had done a pretty good job, but then I remember she re-fluffed the pillows and touched it up. It was pretty good, but not good enough for her. That was the way things went. I felt she was never entirely happy with anything I did, and I desperately wanted to please her, but to no avail. My mom was also very explosive when something went wrong. She yelled very loudly, and sometimes she even cursed. She called me names, sometimes things like fu@king b*tch. Often, these explosions were for very minor infractions. I lived in fear of making her mad.

My evil pedophile stepfather used this against me.
"Don't you want to be like your mother?"
Yes, yes, I wanted to be like her; I wanted her approval!
"If you tell your mother, she'll get really, really mad at you."
No, no!
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You see, I don't want to pass terrible parenting behavior to my own daughter. I used to be desperate to please my mom and even be like her, but now I am desperately seeking to be the mom I never had. This is what I want for my baby girl:

They found that women were more likely to use a warm, sensitive and stimulating parenting style if they were raised in a "low-authoritarian" household during their preschool years; had a cohesive, positive family environment and little conflict during their middle childhood years; and an open, trusting, communicative and close relationship with their parents during their teen years.

Now my challenge is to figure out how to do this without going overboard. The constant giving and nurturing, and especially the lack of sleep, is very draining. I have learned firsthand what mother burnout is. I have actually yelled at my precious baby; I have lost it. My support has mostly been from my husband, and sometimes he doesn't really know how to support me. I'm getting better at knowing when I'm at the edge and taking a break, and he's getting better at supporting me. Thank goodness children are supposed to be resilient ; losing it a couple of times isn't supposed to mar your child's life forever.

I'm also learning how to work with my 2 year old rather than fight her. I've read before about giving your child choices so you can get them to do what you want them to without all the conflict, but reading about it and practicing it are two different things. At first, I really didn't get how to do this successfully, but I think I'm finally getting the knack of it. Often my little one exerts her independence and declares she doesn't want to do something I want her to, but now I give her a choice about how/where we will do it. For example, she often balks at getting dressed or changing into her pajamas, but I let her choose the location when she's protesting: "Do you want to get dressed in your room or mommy's room?" It doesn't work all the time, but it really does work most of the time.

I recently had a tiny inkling of what it must be like to witness positive parenting. Last week my little one was sick. She had no energy and only wanted to sit on the couch and watch TV. Although I know you're supposed to limit TV time, I felt so bad for her that we turned on PBS. It's still TV, but at least the shows have no commercials and aren't violent. I snuggled with her while she listlessly watched. Caillou came on, and I saw excellent parenting at work. Four-year old Caillou asks to have some coffee just like his daddy, but his mommy explains to him that coffee is too strong for Caillou, but would he like to have his own drink in a coffee cup just like his daddy? Caillou was excited to drink out of the cup with no whining and protestation about being denied coffee. I've read about doing this - saying no when you need to but offering a quick substitute; it was really nice to to see an example of positive parenting in action, even if it was in a cartoon. Seeing this has helped me better incorporate this type of discipline with my child, and it's worked!

What if as a child your parents regularly modelled such behavior? When you in turn had your own children, you might naturally put positive parenting into practice, at least most of the time. For me, it's learning everything from scratch, from reading, and yes, from Caillou. I hope it will be different for my daughter, if and when she chooses to be a parent one day.