Starter Kit for Parents (Dr Abdul Rahman & Dr Nur Faizah Ali)

Assalamualaikum,

Disclaimer: This post is just a SHARING note. Of course, it won't be too detailed or complete because parenting is not just theory, but ongoing practice. I'm not a parent myself but I hope by writing this, it'd be beneficial for me in the future and for those who are reading :)

Last Wednesday, I attended a talk at IIUM on parenting. It was so fruitful and enlightening. Luckily the participants are mostly singles (so I feel belong hahah!). Only 10% are married. I guess the target audience are single guys and ladies because it's a talk for students. 

I'll summarise the points of the talk here.

WHAT DOES IT MEANT TO BE A PARENT?

To be a parent, we need to equip ourselves with multi skills. It's not only about having a baby and we automatically become the mom and dad and equipped with the skills. Parenting skills is a psychological process of understanding ourselves, our spouse and children. It's an ongoing process and Dr. said that we should start long before we get marry (So singles out there, let us learn and start improving ourselves. Reminder to myself, especially huhu).

PARENTING STYLES

For psychology students who took the parenting course might be familiar with these four styles of parenting. Basically, parenting styles based on two dimensions of parenting behaviour:

Demandingness and Responsiveness

Source: Verywell Family

Source: Pinterest

[Personally, I believe that it's definitely challenging to be consistent in parenting styles. No one is perfect to practice but what's important is progression. It takes a village to raise children. So, let us all do our part :)]

WHEN DO WE KNOW WE ARE READY TO HAVE A CHILD?

The cliche answer for this: There's no specific or right time for everyone. It's like you ask about readiness for marriage, further study, or anything important in your life. When is the right time? 

But Dr. Abd Rahman said, ask ourselves these questions:

1) Am I in a good place in life?

2) Am I ready for trade-off?

Being a parent is a HUGE decision. So, we need to have a time-frame to decide to have a child.

Being a parents is about division of labor: who's going to take care of the baby? (is it only a responsibility of one parent or both? How do you divide the "job"?)

Pregnancy and parenthood is on-the-job-training. No matter how many books you read, when you have a child, it's a whole new thing. It's a practice to be better day by day and it's a lifelong journey.

SIGN THAT WE ARE READY

Dr. Abdul Rahman provided some signs to know if we are ready. Here are the list:

1) SACRIFICE: when we are willing to sacrifice for other people and not selfish, it's a good sign. This is important especially in the time of emergency

2) CAPACITY TO LOVE: this is subjective. We need to check ourselves. 

3) SELF-CARE: eventhough we sacrifice for other people, we know when to treat ourselves well. De-stress ourselves with things that make us happy and relax. To take care of others, we need to take care of ourselves as well :)

4) SUPPORT SYSTEM: we have good support system or if not, we create one for ourselves because parenting is challenging. 

5) OPEN TO LEARN, CHANGE & GROW: we are willing to learn and improve ourselves. We don't stay stagnant. We are willing to learn from anyone including our children.

6) RESPONSIBLE: we are willing to take the responsibility. We look into our attitude, words, decisions because we know children will indirectly learn from us.

source: image gif

PREGNANCY

Pregnancy is a tough phase for most women. Therefore, we need to make preparations in term of physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual. Dr. Faizah said that this needs to start long before we get pregnant. Basic things like balanced diet, exercising, seeking for knowledge, etc. should be taken into consideration from now.

During pregnancy:

1st trimester : mostly we feel weak and lack of motivation to do exercise (this is the reason we should practice from now. huhu 😓) Take enough proteins, carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables

2nd and 3rd trimester: generally, women gain more energy. Can do exercise and cardio training but appropriate to the pregnant women.

The process of delivery is like being in a war. So, we need to have good stamina.

ROLE OF HUSBAND DURING PREGNANCY

1) Support your wife. Accompany her. During pregnancy, there's hormonal imbalance and your wife might have difficult time to adjust her ups and downs mood. Be supportive.

2) Invite conversation. Touch your wife lovingly to release good hormones (oxytocin) which helps to make your wife feels good and relax.

3) Participate in activities (household chores)

4) Be patient with your wife's mood swings

5) Read and collect information about pregnancy and parenting

6) Prepare for delivery day. All the baby's stuffs put inside one bag. So, when emergency, you won't be panicking

7) Stay calm and help your wife during labor process

8) Stay with wife during emergency

source: GIFER

CAN HUSBAND EXPERIENCE SIMILAR SYMPTOMS WHEN WIFE GOT PREGNANT?

Have you ever heard of husband who experience pregnancy symptoms (morning sickness, dizziness, craving,etc.)? It is called as Couvade syndrome. 

Couvade syndrome is a psychosomatic condition in which the spouse or partner of a pregnant woman experiences symptoms of childbirth or pregnancy. 

THEORIES EXPLAINING THE PHENOMENON

Psychological: anxiety of ambivalency to become new father

Envy: Parturition envy. Wife can pregnant but husband can't so he wants to feel it

Oedipus complex: Father competing with the baby to gain the wife's attention

Be supportive towards the husband as well. They might also experience post-partum depression and labor pain.

IS CONFINEMENT NECESSARY?

Confinement is actually a resting period, not the prohibition or restriction from any food or activities. The practice is differ between culture. The aim is to keep the mom and baby healthy. So, we need to know what we should be followed or not.

POST-PARTUM DEPRESSION

After the delivery, mom has a difficult time to adjust, especially for the first-timer. It's a tiring and demanding process. Around 8-10% women suffer from post-partum depression.

Biological cause         : Hormonal imbalance (estrogen), family history of depression, etc.

Environmental cause : Breastfeed requires lot of efforts, lose sleep, attention shifts to baby, low support, confinements is not done appropriately

HOW TO PREVENT? 

1) Be alert: Identify early sign of depression.

Sleep disturbance, lose appetite, no interest with the baby, hopelessness, lethargic.

Post-partum blues is normal, but if it persists, be alert!

2) Get help from doctors : Early intervention and medication is important

ADVICE TO SINGLES

1) Read a lot, ask a lot, participate in discussion

2) Get psychologist to advise you

3) Parenting is a long and continuous process. Learn and grow.

4) Be brave to admit mistakes and improve

5) We are never ready to actually be ready

6) We can never be a perfect parent but being a good parent is good enough.

Book suggestion by the Dr.s

That's it. 

Thanks for reading. Hope it would be beneficial :)

Life After Graduation: A Long and Lonely Journey

Assalamualaikum.

It has been so long since I write in here. I have not been writing on my blog after my graduation. Adapting process is real and it's sincerely tough 😭

Just like anyone else, after graduation, I spent several months at home hunting for jobs. It feels so dispirited that time. I really feel like I didn't do anything. As a sociable person, not having much interaction with people as much makes me feel so exhausted. At last, I decided to do volunteering + internship at SOLS Health, an NGO that provides mental health service to disadvantaged community.

Eventhough I spent 5 months there, I still feel as if I wasn't doing anything. I also don't know what was I thinking at that time. But what for sure is, I wasn't feel fulfilling. But until I reflect back, then I know I did learn many things there.

This is the list of what I have learnt there:

1) Administration and customer service skills

Alhamdulillah, I never got the opportunity to do this job. As someone who is not that organised, this skill is a step to improve myself. I did feel bored sometimes because this job doesn't really have much interaction with people. But, I guess this is an important skills in the future as well :)

2) Attending FREE psychotherapy sessions

This is one of the best experience there. It is so good to experience being in the therapy session and observe how the psychologists conduct the service. It's helpful when I told the therapist about my issues and she guided me through the process. There's one thing I remember during the session, an analogy of men in an island.

There was a man stuck in an island, waiting for a boat to rescue him. He was so anxious, keep looking at his watch, wondering when would the rescue comes? He wanted to go for work and he's already late. Then he saw another man on the island was so relax, sipping the coconut water. 

He then asked the other man, "Why are you so relax? We're now stuck in this island!"

The man asked him, "Why are you so anxious?"

He said, "I'm already late for my work. You know the job pays me $500 per hour. I can't leave my job"

The man asked him again, "why do you need that much money?"

He answered, "So, later I can relax in an island while sipping coconut water"

The man said, "Isn't that what I do now?"

This story is kinda illogical like how do the man stuck in an island, right? lol.  But from the story, I conclude that we as human, sometimes have this rigid kind of thinking, IF I HAVE THIS, I will be happy. We are so caught up into achieving more and more but forgot to look at the journey when what matters is the journey. And we always forgot to appreciate the present moment and overlook all the things we have now because we are too focus on getting other things.

Please do watch this video :)

3) Join Psychologist Trainees Group Supervision and Learn from Their Experience

When I was there, I got the opportunity to join their group supervision. It was like a lecture but more interactive because I got to listen to their experience handling therapy sessions. Every week, at least there's one group supervision. Learning through other's experience expands my view about life :)

Basically, these are the significant things I learnt at SOLS Health.

Great team :D

Source: SOLS Health facebook

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But that's only one part.

The other part of me feels so lonely.

The transition from university life to adulthood life feels so different.

It's not that I lose all my friends. We still keep in touch with each other. But, we lack in eye-to-eye interaction. But I really understand that life happens and everyone is busy with life. And everyone is also adapting to this new phase of life. 

Whatever it is, the loneliness feeling is almost unbearable. 

source: Wiffle Gif

From the loneliness feeling, everything starts to shatter. One after another. 

That was the test for me at that moment. It was seriously tough. 

Until that one moment, I lost hope in everything. But, that's one thing about me, even when I said I wanted to give up, I didn't. That's what makes me feel so exhausted emotionally and physically. I don't want to start ranting about my job hunting and interviews that I have attended. That's really a long story. Honestly, I spent A LOT of money for job hunting. 

Here is my thought and piece of advice to anyone who hunts for a job:

It is a long and tiring journey. Sometimes, you reject the jobs offered for you. Sometimes, the jobs reject you.

And there will be people saying that you are being choosy. But, as long as you know what you want and your priority at that moment, you're good to go. You're responsible for every choice you made.

And for me, it's okay to be choosy. But, sometimes, you also need to look at your priority. If your priority is money (because it is seriously important), then you should look for jobs that offer you money. If your priority is the journey to your dream, find job that leads you to that.

Neither one of these is better than another because everyone has their own life priority and everyone is not the same :)

There are either one of this:

1) You don't mind about the pay (given it's sufficient) as long as the working environment is good and you enjoy your job.

2) The environment is so-so and it's not that enjoyable but you can bear with it and the pay is high.

There's always opportunity cost for choice you made. But, try to avoid job that you don't enjoy AND the pay is low just for the sake of having a job.

All the best. And whichever path you choose, may it be the best.

source: notespecially

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Other personal issues also contribute to the feeling of loneliness and unworthiness. That was a real hard time for me.

Worse thing is when I thought I was okay but I'm not. I thought everything is fine but it's not. I went for a travel with new people. It was good but another problem comes after the travel *sigh* And that was emotionally draining but after all, everything has settled Alhamdulillah :)

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Long story short, reflecting back, now I feel better and insha Allah, I guess everything starts to fall into place. I accepted the job which involved interaction with children and hopefully this is the path that would lead me to my dream. I'm still adapting to new place but so far, everything seems nice and good. May Allah guides me to educate this children at my best. Really need your prayers 🌷🌷

And yes, my 2018 starts on April 😂😂

Hopefully, I will keep updating my blog. Mohon rajinkan diri. Haha 😆

WHY is it hard to LET GO and MOVE ON?

People asked, how to let go and move on?

Before you need to know HOW, you need to know WHY is it hard to let go?

Why is it so hard?

1. Could be it's because what you need is just an apology from those who hurt you. But unfortunately, most of the time, they won't apologise. I don't know why. Maybe because for them, it's not important? Or maybe it's just that they simply think it doesn't hurt that bad? Or could be, they think you already forget what happen.

• and this is the *mistake* people made (it's not really a mistake because I think, an apology can heal). It's so simple to say "I'm sorry for hurting you" but it takes people to lower down their ego to say "I'm sorry" right? That's why people don't apologise. 🙂
• Why do people want them to apologise? Because sometimes, people tend to BLAME THEMSELVES for what's happening. "Did I do anything wrong?" "Why is this happen to me, God?" "What did I do to deserve this?"
• It really takes time and courage to convince yourselves that it's not your fault. It's a test that Allah let it to happen. He doesn't meant to break us but to mend us. And to understand this concept might take years :')

Take it slowly. Don't be too harsh on yourselves. Healing process takes time. It really is :)

2. Because you think, why do those people live happily while you need to live with the scars that is hard to mend.

• How can we apologise people who don't ask for an apology? The resentment inside the heart is so hard to explain. And we didn't notice that we hold a grudge inside us. Is it wrong to hold a grudge? I don't know. For people who are deeply in pain, it's really understandable if you are not being able to forgive. It's sometimes not about the actions, but the hurtful feelings they left, am I right?

3. Because you yourselves don't forgive yourselves for not being able to forgive people.

• sometimes you do feel bad for not being able to forgive. But dear people, please understand that to forgive also requires lot of courage and bravery. 
• To really forgive and let go really require you to understand yourselves. To understand things that happen in your life. Please know that bad things do happen to good people as well. Like what I said, it's not because Allah is unfair. But because He, with all His wisdom wants to make you grow spiritually healthy. And to understand this concept also takes time. Take it slowly :')

I leave you with a quote from Tere Liye about forgiveness:

"Ketahuilah, saat kita memutuskan untuk memaafkan seseorang, itu bukan persoalan apakah orang itu salah dan kita benar, apakah orang itu memang jahat atau aniaya, bukan. 

Kita memutuskan memaafkan seseorang kerana kita berhak atas kedamaian dalam hati"

May Allah heal you with the best healing. May your heart will grow stronger and more beautiful than ever. For every scar, He knows it. For every tear, He sees it. Sincerely, I pray that Allah will heal you. Amiin.