point of view!

Do you mean parent them differently ?

I'll try to be as equal as possible, and as fair as possible , my brother has always been allowed to get away with a lot more than I have, and its always annoyed me

What a beautiful poem. Do you have it printed and framed somewhere?

We have certain strict rules in the house to keep her safe and those rules wont differ when Andrew comes along.

Any other routine however can be changed due to circumstances but we like to keep her nighttime routine the same. She is just more settle that way.

However I think a lot of people will think we are overprotective and on the other hand a lot of people will think I allow my child to "backchat" or have too much of a say going in.

I do allow her to speak her mind (respectfully) to even go off to her own room, scream, cry throw a tantrum and to come out and tell me exactly what she is feeling. She is totally open to come up to us and tell us she feels sad if we shouted or sad if we did something and we apologize as well. She really gets what she does wrong and she realises we make mistakes as well.

And this child can negotiate for you. If I ask her to do something she will come with a counteroffer. Really well thought out and ask you to reconsider. We let is slide if it is on something thta isnt important. As to us your whole life sometimes is a negotiation.

She is to respect others (but if they overstep it she is by all means to ask or to point it out). I am not in this whole thing that she should respect someone just due to age or authority and that she has every right to be respected back and that respect is earned.

I do parent my kids differently but its more the older/younger thing rather than boy/girl. I need to start consciously making things more equal as I see Caprece as a baby but when Jack was her age he was seen as a kid.

I'm kind of like you Kelly in that I try to see things from their point. That actually helped me in labour too, I was in pain but at least I wasn't having my head squashed.

The thing is each child is an individual so we cant know what they are always thinking and what will/won't effect them for life. I think no matter what we do we will never be the 'perfect' parent because we cannot know what is 'perfect' for each child at each time. So as a parent I do the best I can but I know they are individuals and will turn out how they turn out.