Interview by: Maali Jamil, from 360Moms team.

Bessma is a mother of four children who has loved writing since she was eight years old. She has maintained her parenting blog (Yamaamaa.com) since September 2010 and is also a contributor for World Moms Network.

Contrary to how things usually happen, Bessma started her career when she had her third baby and was pregnant with her fourth. She opened a life skills centre for little children that focus on three major points; nurturing a love for the Arabic language, encouraging creativity through art activities and teaching children life skills and independence.

Bessma is also an active member of the Saut Down Syndrome Society in Riyadh. After ten months of intensive study and practice, Bessma gained her Peaceful Parent Coaching degree and now is setting up her coaching practice called Ahl أهل to encourage mothers and fathers to parent wholeheartedly with forgiveness.

She’s originally from Saudi Arabia and lives in Riyadh with her husband and children.

Please introduce yourself and your blog.

My name is Bessma Bader. I have four children. The fact that I am a mother of a 13-year-old is just as surreal as me being I am a mother of four. I started blogging in late 2010. I have always had a need to write and had just started reading a blog and I was interested in giving it a go. 'Ya Maamaa' was my second attempt at blogging. My first attempt failed because I was trying hard to write about things I thought would be interesting to readers as opposed to writing what I know. When I started writing about being a young Saudi mother of, then, three children I found I absolutely loved writing. The great thing was that other people enjoyed reading it! For the last six years, it has been a big part of my life.

Please tell us about the work that you do for The "Saut" Down Syndrome Society.

The Voice of Down Syndrome Society is a non-profit society based in Riyadh, KSA. We own and operate specialized schools offering world-class educational and vocational services to individuals with Down syndrome from birth to employment. We use a state-of-the-art curriculum to apply effective, well-researched techniques and we incorporate best practices in the field of Down syndrome education to empower our graduates to live to their full potential. We are the only organization to deal with children from birth to employment in the Middle East and, as far as I understand, in the world.

My mother was the one who insisted I join the Society, as she was stepping down from her role there. I just had my third child and was in the process of renovating my house so, needless to say, I was apprehensive. All it took was one visit to the school to make me realize how privileged I was to be a part of something so life-changing for these children and their families. We are opening up our new campus in Riyadh in September. This will be the second school in Riyadh and we are also in the process of building a school in Jeddah now. Our program is unique in the world and we are focusing now on finding ways to serve more families as we have over 1000 students on the waiting list in Riyadh only.

I am passionate about spreading awareness and dispelling the myths that a lot of people have about Down Syndrome. I am looking for opportunities to include our kids in advertising and mainstream media to show the world their abilities encouraging more respect and awareness.

Always put your relationship with your child above their behaviour, not to let your emotions spill onto them.

What is worldmomsblog.com and how did you become a part of it?

When I started blogging, I was very active on my site and regularly visited a lot of other blogs, mostly about parenting. I came across World Moms Blog in 2011 and emailed them a link to YaMaamaa.com asking if they would be interested in me writing for them. I got an email back saying yes and I have written for them ever since. We have just announced on the blog that this month we are changing from World Mom’s Blog to World Moms Network since we have grown out of being a blog into a network of over 70 moms. We have received recognition from various organizations for our writing and the work we do to spread awareness about important issues affecting mothers and women around the world. I have had the opportunity to meet Jennifer Burden, the founder of WMB. I am absolutely in awe of all she does. I feel lucky to be a part of this network.

Please tell us about being a Peaceful Parenting Coach.

Last year I felt like I hit my parenting rock bottom. I had little patience, and my children were starting to avoid me. I was angry all the time. Yes, my life was stressful and work was overwhelming, but I also knew I shouldn't let this spill onto my children. So I researched (which is my favorite pastime and I do it very well) on different things I could read or tools I could learn to help me.

I spent a year taking a lot of assessments from EQ to strengths to values. I was learning a lot about myself, but I had not yet found a way to fit it all together. I came across Peaceful Parenting and read that one of the main goals is to always put your relationship with your child above their behaviour, not to let your emotions spill onto them. I felt it was ideal because it calls for a cooperative, respectful relationship as opposed to a controlling, manipulative one. It wasn’t about making the child do what you say when you say it, it was about fostering your family values in your child and having them do what they have to because they understand why they’re doing it. This is just a snippet of what I read so I signed up for a course that had 24 sessions over ten months.

I was truly blown away by the change in myself and my children. So I continued the rest of the training to be a coach myself.

I studied and implemented and practiced nonstop. I started with doing the 10-week Peaceful Parenting Program that I now give to other mothers and was truly blown away by the change in myself and my children. So I continued the rest of the training to be a coach myself. As a parenting coach, my ultimate goal for the mothers I coach is for them to accept and love themselves wholeheartedly, warts and all, and not to expect perfection. And of course to love their children and accept them, warts and all, and not to expect perfection. The idea is not to create an ideal world where things never go wrong and we never get upset, but rather to strengthen the bond between mother and child to be able to get through those tough times.

Are there any difficulties that are unique to mothers in Riyadh?

I would say society's involvement and the culture of judging one another. Mothers care too much about what other mothers think. Or what their families think. We do not have a good balance between being close-knit with our families and still having autonomy over our children and our day-to-day lives. Another is the lack of after school activities and extracurricular activities. And the final point I feel is a problem for parents, but some may not see it as such, is the lack of sleep children are getting here. There is misinformation or a lack of knowledge about the importance of a full night's sleep and what constitutes enough hours a night. As a result, I feel that a lot of behavioural issues, and likely some academic issues, could be resolved if children got enough sleep.

Has your parenting style changed from the first child to your fourth child? If so, how?

Yes, in some ways it has changed dramatically, and in other ways, it hasn't changed at all. But I have changed a lot from the 23-year-old who had her first baby before her first anniversary. I started my motherhood journey completely in love with my firstborn and was very misinformed. I got married at twenty-two years old, and I never spent a lot of time thinking about having children or how I would raise them. Thinking back, I raised my eldest in a way that would make me cringe now (TV every day, baby rice as his first food, no set bedtimes). I think the change started happening around the time I moved to London with my husband for two years. I had my two eldest children who were five and two at the time.

Living in Riyadh, I didn't have the concept of giving my own small family priority. It was always about the extended family. For example, it was more important that my children go have lunch with their grandparents than them having lunch with their father and I. Living in London, for the first time I had to prioritize my family and I was not letting go of that. And effectively, it was the first time I had complete control over what happens with my children, from what they eat to when they sleep and I haven’t given that control up since! This was when bedtime routines, life skills and good nutrition came into play. And this is when electronics started to get limited until we reached the current state of no electronics on school days.

I stopped using punishments or rewards. Rewards were a huge part of how I parented my children. Now they are expected to do things because it's their responsibility or because it's a good thing to do and that is enough of a reason.

When I had my third child. I was lucky enough to have an unbelievable summer nanny with me to help with my 6-month-old and she opened my eyes to how much play can enhance his quality of life and help him progress. This was the beginning of my obsession with playing! She also showed me how having a general schedule is important and that an avocado is a perfect first food for a baby! I started reading up on baby rice and the effect that sugar has on children and adults (baby rice does turn to sugar in the baby’s body). That was also around the time I started blogging and following a lot of other mommy blogs that had so many different views and perspectives.

About a year ago, I started my Peaceful Parenting journey and this contributed to a big change in my parenting style because I stopped using punishments or rewards. Rewards were a huge part of how I parented my children. Now they are expected to do things because it's their responsibility or because it's a good thing to do and that is enough of a reason.

Looking back on this I am amazed my children don’t feel like they were raised by a different mother each! But it’s all coming together in the end, it only took 12 years!