Annie Duke Shares Her Single Motherhood Tricks

0
2,538 views

Being a single mother of four kids is not as easiest as you think. It required tips and tricks. Annie Duke willing to shares her tricks to us through momlogic.

As a professional poker player, her job is helping her to be the good lie detector for her kids. In poker, it has known that you have to get a feel for your opponent, to see if they’re lying or not.
“Most of the things you’re doing at a poker table involve looking for signs that your opponents are uncomfortable. You get good at doing that in a very quick timetable.”

“So my kids have a very difficult time lying to me. I have a very good lie detector! And they get a much bigger punishment for lying than doing the thing itself. If you lie to me about it, you have a very big consequence.”

With poker also teaches you a tremendous amount of patience. “There are hours and hours where most of what you’re doing is folding your hand, and you’re not playing most of the hands you’re dealt. So that patience really comes in handy when raising four kids!”

Poker also teaches you that there are things you can control and things you can’t control. “I can’t control the cards that I’m dealt, but I can control how I play the hand. That really helps you be a better mom. As mothers, we spend a lot of time focusing on things we can’t control about our children, so poker helps me do that less.”

Teach respect and set as a sample for the children have to start from the beginning and the eldest have to do so. Annie might had divorce and has another man in her life, but only for her children, they know one father only. They can not choose whose parents they going to live to, they deserve the best from the unity of the family.

“When we were getting divorced, I made a decision that I got to choose the father of my children, but the kids didn’t get to choose their parents. No matter how much we were wronged, our kids deserve to feel like both of their parents walk on water. That’s how I felt about my dad. They deserve to have the same feelings about their father. I told my parents, “If you ever say a bad thing about my ex in front of the kids, you will not be around the kids.”

Any mother knows the personalities of her children, since they’re born, and each one is unique and special, and for Annie, it is an extra attention to taught them especially in respect.

My job is to make them be polite and respectful within their personality type.”

And maintain the good relationship between her ex husband is on her mind all time for the sake of the children. She refused to fight for anything, also not for the lawyer fee divorce. They are a very unlucky children, since most parents who divorce do not doing communication each other, so they can get one over on them. For Annie Duke’s family, “We communicate all the time.”And “He comes over for Christmas dinner.”

She is a single mother, but it does not mean she is taking her four children, Maud, 14, Leo, 11,  Lucy, 9, and Nell, 7, only by herself, she is so lucky to be surounded by very supported family and person.

“I am lucky I have the support of my ex-husband and I have a nanny … I think that might be the toughest job in the world! I don’t even know how you’d do it. So when people ask me to speak about being a single mother, I often say I couldn’t even begin to speak upon those issues!”

“I wish that every divorced couple would remember this: You chose your partner, so take responsibility for that decision. Your kids did not choose their parents. Whatever wrongs your ex did to you (unless they were abusive) … don’t make your kids suffer from those mistakes.”

She and her ex are more cohesive and compact after they divorce. “I wouldn’t have gotten divorced if I didn’t think what was going on in the marriage was affecting my kids negatively. When I realized that it started to affect the way I parent, that’s when it was over. It’s not that he’s a bad person — we just had a bad marriage. The kids are so much happier now that we’ve split.” Always there are reasons for something happen, she explain, “I think I was overly focused on the kids; I think that’s what happens a lot to moms. Maybe I wasn’t as nurturing of the relationship. My youngest was 1 when I divorced. I found myself staying at work longer to avoid the problems at home, and that was taking time away from my kids.”

Annie reveals that one of her daughters is “twice exceptional” — profoundly gifted with executive functioning issues, struggling with things like impulse control and an ability to organize information.  She had been doing well in school up until the sixth grade, Annie says, but that is when things started “falling apart.”

“Once she was diagnosed, the pieces of the puzzle started coming together. Her ADHD (Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder) is mild enough that we don’t have to medicate. But we have to be careful not to escalate arguments with her. Her brain has to get back to thinking with her frontal lobe.”

“This is her right path. She’s getting straight A’s, and has become very socially successful,” Annie says. “It’s like a total transformation. When you have a child that’s unhappy, it creates some anger and you end up butting heads all the time. I was spending a lot of time walking away from arguments so she could calm down. Now we are getting along better than ever.”

Although she joined into reality television, Annie would not put her children on reality show at first place like Jon & Kate Plus 8 show. “With cameras on 24/7, you lose that private part of you. I don’t see how a family is supposed to survive that.”

“It’s stressful enough on a marriage to have eight children. We were raising 4 kids and we lost our marriage. You have to really maintain focus or that gets lost.”

And her best tips for the family who is interest to join reality show, “My recommendation would be not to put your children on camera, period.”

“Yesterday, I deleted 1,000 friend requests on Facebook because there are pictures of my kids on there, and I will not accept you if I don’t know you. I feel like, “Yes, I’m a public figure, but my kids aren’t.” A few people have approached me about doing a reality show about being a mom of four who plays poker. I always say, “I hope you don’t mind if my children are never on camera!” They always say, “I really respect that” but then they never come around again!”

Joining on Celebrity Apprentice made her children especially the 11 years old and the 9 years old were very interested, they were really cheeleaders for Annie and defensed her mother, like, “Why did they do that? You’re doing the best of everyone!”

Far away from her children while joined the show was a hard, “There was one night I just broke down in tears”, but luckily her ex-husband is extremely involved to taking care the children and they actually visited her once, “We went to the Natural History Museum and the Statue of Liberty. They loved it.”

Just like any kids, Annie’s child also like to travel, for vacation, “They love both kinds of vacations — the beachy ones and the more educational trips. We took them to Boston and they loved it. We did the Freedom Trail, went to Quincy Market, Salem, and the Museum of Science. They loved it. This summer, we’re going to Washington, D.C., while I’m there doing some lobbying, and are going to do the whole White House tour. They’re excited.”

She is not only a samrt mom and care so much about her children, also she is involved with some charity,

Ante Up for Africa benefits Darfur, and the World Series of Poker is our main partner. We’ve raised 2.1 million dollars so far, and 100% of the money comes from the poker community.”

And for improve the lives of young people by empowering them with effective decision skills in the Decision Education Foundation, It needed when teens make bad decisions, you’ve got kids getting into a car with someone who’s drunk, teens getting pregnant, kids dropping out of school. “It’s time someone taught good decision-making in our classrooms!”

So much inspiring mom, don’t you think?