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Bad Mother, Good Mother
Nowadays, the Bonners are a happy family - it wasn't always like this...
10 years ago, after 22 years in an unhappy marriage, Sadie Bonner split up with her husband. Two of her seven children had left home, but there were five others to bring up. Says Sadie, "I didn't want the responsibility. The children were very angry because their dad was gone, and fighting amongst themselves. I was like a child myself, I was getting into it with them. In the beginning I didn't smack them much because I was hit, very severely, as a child. I kind of swayed from being very easy going to being really aggressive. So it was kind of a battle the whole time."
To Sadie parenting had been about keeping up appearances, "That was the way I was brought up - the children had to be nice and clean, let other people see that I'm coping all right." But eventually, realising she wasn't coping, Sadie contacted Newpin, ..... which helped her understand and alter her behaviour towards her children. Sadie found it hard, "My oldest daughter was 21, so naturally I thought I've done a good job, I've been a parent all these years, and it was really difficult for me to hear, that I have to make changes, not the children.".
The next couple of years were confusing and difficult for the family, as Sadie worked at changing her behaviour. Her daughter Sarah-Ann recalls, " She was listening to what Newpin were saying - not to hit us - but she didn't understand why she couldn't do that. Sometimes she was so out of control, that she didn't know what to do..." Sadie remembers "I remember one day just saying I was better off the way I was ... and really wanting to stop, and not go any further, this changing thing is bloody hard work, you know..."
One morning, when the Sadie was getting the children ready for school things began to change.
Daniel explains, "Mum was brushing Mary-Ellen's hair, and Mary-Ellen was roaring, mum didn't hit her or do anything she used to do, she just let go of the brush and told Mary-Ellen 'if you want to do your own hair you can do it yourself.' From then on there was no arguing, we got ourselves ready." Today, Daniel describes his mother as, "Great. If we do something wrong, she doesn't hit us , she sits us down, and she tells us like what we're doing wrong and it helps us a lot."
Sadie's efforts have been repaid, "It's very seldom now I shout or lose my temper with them. I just love being a mum today, whereas I didn't before, I just hated it. I hated the responsibility. I feel I am the centre of my children's world. If they've got a problem, they will come to me rather than going to somebody else. That's the greatest thing I've got out of the changing."
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