Child Rearin'

I am a mom. I am a mom of nine. I am a mom of a child with a disability. I am a mom of a set of twins. I have been a mom for 13 years, and I still have 18 years until my baby will be an 'adult'. All of these things together, should make me some what of a professional mom. But it doesn't. It should makes me really good at this 'mom' thing. But, it doesn't. I may have, over my years grown, gained knowledge, and and increased my capacity for patients. And some of that may be true, but mostly I think, my ability to 'not sweat the small stuff' is more just a laziness I have discovered in myself. I have a finely tuned ability to not hear whining, wailing, fighting and crying. And I don't think that benifits anyone. I used to be involved in every fight my kids had with each other, stop every jump on the couch. Repremand every stencil on the wall, then promply have the offending child clean it up. I don't do that any more. I have lost that... caring about those little things. They don't really matter. But I don't think that helps my kids. My older set of kids, were WAY better behaved as younger kids and as older kids, than the littler set is.
 I have my kids broken down into 3 sets of 3. It's how we separate them in normal everyday life anyway. We have the 3 older. They are 13, 12 and 10. Girl boy boy. We have the 3 girls. 8, 5 and 4. The 8 year old has Ds and is slightly ahead of where my 5 yr old is, so this grouping fits. And the babies. Twin 2 and a half and the baby who is 9 months.
Here's the point of what I started out to say. I am part of a twin group on FB. These moms are all ages, family sizes professions, everything about us is different, except for the fact that we all have twins that were born born between April 2011 and Sept 2011. One of the moms posted the question the other day, "how do I get my kids to stop throwing toys. They know they are not supposed to, but they still do it" I replied, you can't get kids to stop doing what they want to do. You just have to wait until they out grown said behavior. Then I wrote. JK. But the truth is.... I wasn't. In my experience, this is fact. I mean sure, there are somethings you can teach them. Like don't cut your hair......But did she stop that because the consequences were un pleasant? How do I get the 2 yr old to quit jumping on the couch. Asking him not to, is obviously not unpleasant enough. He will out grow it I guess. And beating the kid seems a little severe, for that type of offense. These types of things are not really that major. Although I used to spend way more time on correcting these types of behavior. Did I just get tired of wasting my breath>? Did I get tired of being the mean nagging mom? Did I finally realize that if I let it keep bothering me, eventually I would finally snap and do something I regret? maybe, but mostly I think I just got old and tired.
So what about those character things we see in our kids, that are not socially acceptable? You know when we see those traits in other adults, it makes us cringe? What is our responsibility there. How do we 'correct' these types of things with out making our kids feel bad about themselves and feel self conscious.
(this is where I am at as a parent. We've gone from correcting jumping on couches to big kid problems)
I see somethings starting in my daughter, that are traits she got form me, that took me years to recognize, and I am still working on correcting in myself. Is it my job to point this out to her? Which is where my "out grow behaviors " question comes in. Are these character flaws something they will need to recognize and correct them selves? Or is it my job to point out and help correct? How do you point out personal space problems to a 5 yr old, with out making her feel like you need 'her' away from you, and then making her feel bad. Or your 10 yr old, everyone hates me, woes, with out getting so frustrated with him, because he just is not grasping that concept. Have you ever met an adult whose issues are always someone elses fault?
This kid raising stuff is no joke. I used to tell myself , I was not going to be that mom who had a bunch of kid, then got too tired to raise them properly. But I can see myself getting three.
We have friends, who we just adore, who have 2 grown kids. their kids are the awesome. Well behaved, honest obedient, kind. Did they do it right, or did they just end up with kids who were, as she says "blessed with obedience" Are we at the mercy of our own God given traits? How do we as parents help our kids overcome those things that will hinder their progress. Or do we have to wait until they 'out grow behaviors'. How much correction is too much, how much is not enough. How will they afford their therapy bills? JK, One thing I do know, is we need to at least help establish in them, the ability to overcome adversity, help them become resilient. Maybe that's the key...... Resiliency.