10 Tips for Parenting a Happy Healthy Large Family

I am the oldest of 11 children. I enjoyed many things about growing up in a full house; a lot of what you hear about big families is true! There is always someone to play with, you learn to work together with lots of other people, and you get lots of opportunities to learn about caring for children of all ages. Personally, I love children, and I would even love to have a fairly large family myself.

It’s also true that having many children means that each child won’t get as much individual attention. I think that this fact ended up being helpful in my family. When there is emotional dis-function or excessive control from parents, less attention can be a bit of a relief. My world would have been very different if my parents had stopped with 2 or 3 children. The pressure I was under while living at home was so great, I can only imagine how it would have intensified if my parents had not been forced to spread themselves a little thinner. So yes, my family had its issues. I don’t feel that those issues were rooted in the amount of children; however, those issues were played out within a large family.

I have 3 young children myself, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want to raise them. So when Rae asked me to do a post on what parents of large families can do to avoid some of the particular problems large families run into, I was interested. I can’t say I have a lot of experience in what to DO yet, but I do know some mistakes that the family I grew up in made that I will be avoiding at all costs, so I will share some of those…..

Head over to No Wealth But Life to read the rest! And be sure to check out the rest of her great blog.