Parenting 101
Yesterday at lunch, I had a fascinating conversation with my business partners Mikey and Johnny about parenting. Mikey has two kids (ages one and three), as does Johnny (seven and ten) and we discussed the merits and pitfalls of the various parenting styles. Of course we covered over-protective parents who don’t allow their kids to… well, be kids. We talked about parents who seem to hand their insecurities, fears and issues down to their off-spring. And parents who micro-manage every moment of their child’s day. We also spoke about kids playing team sports where no scores are kept during the game because the grown-ups don’t want any of the kids to experience losing.
Good grief.
My Childhood
Growing up in a country town, I spent countless hours with my mates riding our bikes (without helmets) through dense leach-infested bush. In the middle of the wilderness, we would make fires, build ramps and jumps for our bikes, ride down stupidly steep hills, catch frogs and other critters, wade in swamps and often get lost. When we weren’t exploring the wilds of Latrobe Valley, we were playing team games and sports where there would be actual winners and losers. Amazingly, nobody died from losing a game of football, playing in dirt, climbing a tree or coming last in a running race.
And I should know; I came last many times.
So, clearly the bloke with no kids is not the guy to turn to for parenting advice but as a casual observer, can I respectfully suggest that perhaps all our parental protection, direction and intervention might (at times) be leaving some of our kids ill-equipped to deal with the messy, nasty, unfair, uncomfortable reality of life beyond the parental bubble? Life post-childhood?
Just saying.
Life Lessons
I worry about kids who never experience any kind of loss. Who never scrape their knees. Who never climb a tree, chase a frog, attack an ant nest, crash their bike or play in dirt. Who never experience the unfairness of life. Who never have to work hard or get uncomfortable. Who never fail anything at school because some grown-up decided that giving marks or grading work could be detrimental to the child’s self-esteem. Again, good grief. Wait till that child enters the workforce and their first boss is a total prick.
Let’s see mum and dad fix that.
But then again, maybe the non-parent is missing the point? What would I know? The only thing I’ve ever raised is a Golden Retriever. And he had issues. Which is why I need your help today. Feel free to answer one, all or some of the following questions. Don’t be shy. Participation makes this a worthwhile exercise. I will give away five signed copies of my new book for the contributions that blow my lace-up Ugg boots off. Yes, we will post books anywhere in the world.
Here are my conversation starters:
- Am I vaguely in the ball park with this topic or am I totally missing the point?
- Are we adequately preparing our kids for life beyond childhood?
- When does protecting, guiding and encouraging a child go from being a positive to a negative?
- What are the signs, symptoms and consequences of an over-protective parent?
- Do we tell our over-protective, neurotic, control-freak friends what they’re doing or do we stay out of it?
- Your general thoughts on the matter?
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Herr MaschinenMensch, CollegeDegreeHelper, Vexir's RSS Feeds, Fadli, Boring Blog and others. Boring Blog said: Practical Parenting – Questions You Need to Ask Yourself: Parenting 101 Yesterday at lunch, I had a fascinating… http://bit.ly/i8SQqI [...]
Hi.
WebMD just posted an article I think yesterday on the top of #4. I’ll let them handle that, they’re up on the research. It’s called “Tiger moms: 16 signs you’re too strict with your kids”.
Personally, I think there’s a happy medium between letting wild children raise themselves and not letting poor Jonny go an inch without permission/supervision/sterilization procedures on the environment. In our house, it seems to be striking a balance between Daddy style and Mommy style. But of course neither of us is on either extreme end of the spectrum. :)
I think there have to be boundaries and limits and rules in order to foster discipline and end up with law abiding adults who live in healthy homes and who are welcome guests in other people’s homes. I also think that kids have to have some time and freedom to figure out what they’re going to do this afternoon without having every minute scheduled. I think there’s a need for allowing them to play with sticks and leaves outside and make their own story up as they go along. There should be toys that allow freedom of purpose and toys that constrain also. Mom and Dad should wrestle/cuddle with the kids, but should also enforce what is acceptable/not acceptable behavior.
As far as winning/losing, well, I think kids should be exposed to that early on, but it also needs to be accompanied by perspective–that winning or losing a particular game is not a defining factor in how lovable or worthy a child is. I think one way to do that is with silly video games that mommy and daddy aren’t any good at either. :) We gave our children a wii game for christmas that’s utterly ridiculous and requires that you play against computer generated opponents, whether you’re playing by yourself or with other people. We played the game with them, and we lost just as miserably as they did–but always cheerfully because the game is silly. Now both the kids and the parents are getting better at the game. When one sibling seems to ‘always lose’ when playing against the other, they started switching over to ‘team mode’ where they’re both on the same team (with other artificial players) playing against a completely artificial other team. Maybe that’s a cop-out, but I figure since they’re both six we still have time to work out the sibling competition later, when there’s a little more logic and reason to balance out the emotions.
As far as ‘are we preparing our kids’ well, I would submit that some families are better than others at that, some schools are better than others, and some life experiences are better than others. Then too, some kids absorb the lessons with more ease and grace than others.
And whether you say something to your neurotic friends or not, well…if you were going to say something, it’s easier to phrase it as a question of some sort, and if that goes somewhere useful then have a discussion about it ONE time, then let it go. Like “Isn’t it exhausting to be shepherding the kids to all these activities? Seems like you’re always running around…” But if it’s a discipline thing where they jump the kid for the tiniest infraction, well, there’s really not a graceful way to go after that. Everyone thinks their own way is the right way. If the topic comes up, you can only present your own experience–don’t tell someone you think they’re doing it wrong. Personally I like pointing at ‘expert’ advice if I happen to have read something. But trying to give someone else child-rearing advice is a minefield best negotiated gently if at all.
After being in this parenting thing for 6 years, I think it’s pretty obvious that no one person knows best. You do the best you can with what you know at the time and forgive yourself for not knowing everything. You have to forgive other people for being different, too. :) The fewer children we have, societally as well as in a single family, the more they are protected and guarded. We have to work hard to relax our death grip on control. Some lessons are best learned through personal experience, rather than rules laid down by parents and other authorities.
Just my take.
shris
The WebMD advise is very good.
As a parent who grew up with the kind of childhood freedom to fail and explore that you describe your childhood to have been, I feel that our overprotective, neurotic, self-esteem obsessed child rearing is not adequately preparing our children for the real world.
The problem is that no parent is in a vacuum when it comes to parenting. Each parent has their own idea how things should be done. I think that a lot more parents would allow their children to explore and learn through failure and hard work– if it were purely up to US. BUT, parenting is NOT just up to the parents. We are bombarded with pressure to protect our children every day — from the media, from government agencies, from other parents, from the SCHOOLS — and often the message is “if you aren’t guarding your children you are either a bad parent or neglectful.
I have been struggling for years to get the school system to back off from my family life. If my children have a bad day the teacher is right up there reporting “emotional issues” to the principle and SCHOOL SOCIAL WORKERS!! If a child finds something boring or doesn’t respond to the teaching methods the teacher, school counselor, social workers all jump in and push parents to seek help from doctors and psychiatrists. If a child has a hard time with a sport they are referred to medical assistance rather than being told to PRACTICE. I have found that when it comes to learning, parents are cut out of the loop as much as possible (at least in Canadian schools) because the school system doesn’t want children “PUSHED” to practice skills… because asking a child to practice reading, writing, printing, and math will damage their self esteem rather than give them the skills to MASTER these skills. The idea that any effort is rewarded and kids are never told that they need to work more on something, that they aren’t doing well enough means that kids often feel they don’t need to do more than minimal effort — you get the gold star for any effort so why make more of and effort than you need to?
It seems that no matter what you do someone thinks you’re not doing enough. Parents are judged by their children now… I find that a lot of parents I talk to who are overprotective tend to be the ones that are most worried about how they look to the outside world rather than really creating well rounded and happy children. Rather than letting children explore their worlds we worry over them leaving our sight — someone might abduct them (never mind that there is very little empircal evidence that abductions are increasing) or abuse them, they might hurt themselves, they might fight with a friend, they might not succeed — just causes them to be AFRAID to explore.
What consequences are these things goign to have?
Well… my 10 year old is not interested in working towards a goal, and why should he because he will get a pat on the head and praised for every single thing he does added effort doesn’t equal added praise and reward. He’s learning that practice is just boring repetition for nothing, he gets the same response whether his teacher can read his writing or not, whether he gets the correct answers or not! Why attempt to get BETTER at something if you think you’re doing it WELL ENOUGH? There is no ambition within the kids to succeed for THEMSELVES, there is no longer any internal curiosity or drive to prove that they can master skills when they are told every effort is enough.
My 7 year old daughter is dealing with the other issues. She is afraid to leave the sight of adults, even for a minute. The cloud of neurotic fear that media and community create around how “safe” it is for children to do things for themselves, by themselves, to master their environment… is creating children who fear exploring. She fears playing outside. She fears taking a bus, riding her bike, touching a butter knife, making a phone call.
The parents are afraid to push kids too much, we’ve been made to fear for their egos, to (falsely) bolster their self-esteem with every effort they make, we are told to protect them from failure, from pain, from loss, from the very things that they need to have the capacity to deal with as they grow. How can we prepare them for a world where they will need to KNOW they can achieve if they work, if we never require them to WORK at anything, if they are handed everything with no effort? When we are judged by not only how well they DO but how much we coddle them? Parents are being pulled in so many directions that we can’t even decide what is best for our children without being torn apart (or made to feel guilty for not living up to) by all the “experts”.
We need to get back to allowing children to fail, to learn that they can improve by practice and effort. We need them to be required to earn their own way to get the fancy toys and gadgets because through these efforts they learn the skills to be adults. We need to stop trying to find reasons why families are failing, stop listening to experts telling us kids are too fat because mothers work or due to single parent families, we need to stop medicating kids for being kids. We need to find a way to relax our kung fu grip and let kids touch slimy things, jump in mud puddles, make a mess, fall down, scrape knees… and MASTER their enviroments AND their minds.
Only child, father of 13 year old boy, who is a good student, in drama club, plays travel soccer, rec tennis and hockey.
Am I vaguely in the ball park with this topic or am I totally missing the point?
- Agree 110% Parents can’t live life for their kids – teaching them to be self-sufficient is the BEST protection.
Are we adequately preparing our kids for life beyond childhood?
- Lord no.
When does protecting, guiding and encouraging a child go from being a positive to a negative?
- When life inevitably requires the kid to do things on his own.
What are the signs, symptoms and consequences of an over-protective parent?
- Good question. I’d say it varies greatly by kid, the family, school and community situation.
Do we tell our over-protective, neurotic, control-freak friends what they’re doing or do we stay out of it?
- A non-parent telling a parent how to do things is unlikely to end well. The important thing is that a kid learn SOMEWHERE how to be self-sufficient, emotionally, mentally and physically before they HAVE to be.
Your general thoughts on the matter?
- “Don’t talk to strangers” is the absolute dumbest advice in the world. Success in real life is ALL ABOUT talking to strangers. Somewhere along the line you have to develop the instincts that let you do so safely and successfully. We taught our son that if he was lost or scared to “find a mommy” to ask for help. when he was 5 he got separated from us, walked up to a strange man (who had 2 kids with him) asked if he could borrow his cell phone, and proceded to call my wife and ask where we were. outstanding.
- Look at accident statistics when deciding where to put your efforts in protecting your kids. Seatbelts and learning to swim well matter. Abduction? Internet stalking? not so much. Guns are deadly attractive to kids – at best teach your kids how to properly handle firearms, at worst do not touch a gun without an adult and leave the room anytime there is a gun around.
- Reward kids for doing their best and failing, but only when they fail for the right reasons. My son’s soccer coach 2 years ago scheduled them against the best teams in the area and they lost most games. We made sure that he wasn’t discouraged and stuck with our league. Now that he is older and scheduling is done by the state, his team is quickly being promoted because they developed much faster in losing to good teams than they would have in dominating bad ones.
- Grades matter, but not as much as parents think. Since he is smart enough to get all As, that’s what we all expect, but Bs are acceptable since they are largely the result of all the extra-curiculars that are important too. We’d be just as proud of Cs and Ds if that was what he was capable of with the same effort.
- Your kids friends matter more than anything else. You WANT your kid to explore boundaries, best to do that with smart, good kids than otherwise. Encourage diversity in friends. If your kid has friends who seem sketchy, invite them to your home and get to know them. Forbidding anything tends to make it more attractive.
- Our number one rule… Nothing you can ever do is as bad as lying to us. Because if you do that, we can’t trust you about ANYTHING. Our number two rule… Anytime you are somewhere you don’t need to be, we will come get you, no questions asked, no punishment. I’d much rather get dragged out of bed at 3am to pick up my underage, drunk son to take him home than to be dragged out of bed at 4am by the police telling me that my son is dead.
Get over to Freerange Parenting by Lenore Skenazy http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/
and she discusses this topic every day in so many different (and wonderful!) ways.
You’re on the money. There is a book called Omnipotent Child covering this in super detail. I hope you don’t mind if I quote from the book description from http://www.omnipotentchild.com/omnipotentchild.php
Dr. Millar has said, “my experience has taught me that people who go looking for advice on how to rear their children love them or they wouldn’t be looking. They don’t need to be told to give their child more love. They need somebody who knows the down-and-difficult details of parenting as those in the trenches know them, and can tell them what to do about things when they aren’t going well.”
The Omnipotent Child goes beyond just loving your child – it looks at how to train your child so that he or she develops the strengths to cope with the steadily widening world. Children need patience and self-control to cope with life. The Omnipotent Child has a lot to say about how to train your toddler toward patience and self-control.
Children also need to grow out of the natural egocentricity that surrounds them as infants – when they think they are the sun and the rest of the family are planets orbiting about them. The Omnipotent Child has a lot to say about training children to learn how to accommodate as members of the family, not its center.
When children manage to develop patience and self-control, and when they see themselves as a member of the group, not the center of the universe, they come to accept that they must obey reasonable rules, and they learn how to stand up to unreasonable control – such as from playground bullies. They build the equipment necessary to cope with life, and every moment of coping brings a sense of accomplishment. It is this honest sense of accomplishment that brings increased maturity and, ultimately, strong self-esteem and a sense of one’s value. And is that not what all parents want for their children, that they grow to be coping, mature, capable, and happy adults
Biggest learning for me was “Praise the effort, not the outcome”. Its more important to have a child willing to try hard (and try again) then a perfect result.
My full response: http://bbohling.com/practical-parenting
—
Our situation: we have one boy, 4 years old.
1. Am I vaguely in the ball park with this topic or am I totally missing the point?
Spot on!
2. Are we adequately preparing our kids for life beyond childhood?
For those parents that are putting helmets and kneepads on their children to cross the street, filling every moment with activities, and/or making sure their children play in sports where “everyone is a winner” I think not. I’ve seen several news shows (60 Minutes, 20/20, etc.) that have ran segments on how corporations are now evolving to care for these kids that constantly require positive feedback. IMO, this is not a good direction to be heading.
3. When does protecting, guiding and encouraging a child go from being a positive to a negative?
Protecting: let the child explore their worlds unguarded in controlled situations. This type of parenting has allowed our child to figure out his boundaries. I know if I was all “padded up” when riding a bike when I was a kid I would have been 10x more gutsy in my stunts…and would have likely ended up breaking bones. As it turns out, I never work any protective gear, yet never had a single broken bones…even after launching off many ramps built with saw horses and plywood from houses being built in the neighborhood.
Guiding/Encouraging: We like to take the approach of exposing our child to many experiences. Only if he shows an interest in something do we find ways to enable him to explore in greater detail. We also buy very few toys that are tied to any movie (or similar). This allows him to use his own imagination, not someone else’s. His favorite toys have always been the type like wooden blocks.
4. What are the signs, symptoms and consequences of an over-protective parent?
I preface my response to this question with: I don’t believe there is a distinct line…especially given every single child is different. However, for us and our child our gauge is acceptable consequences. Let’s take biking as an easy example. If we are just biking along our relatively flat sidewalk then a helmet (or any other padding) isn’t necessary. We accept that our child could crash and get scraped and cut. It is extremely unlikely that he would break any bones or worse. We also rarely just let our child win in competitive activities. We feel that it is important that he learns how to lose. For one, we want him to strive to better himself. In addition, we want him to learn how to handle those inevitable situations where he will fail. We really stress that it is difficult to be successful (a winner) without failing/mistakes and hard work.
5. Do we tell our over-protective, neurotic, control-freak friends what they’re doing or do we stay out of it?
For the most part we stay out of it. Again, every single child is different. I think we are very fortunate that our child has been able to handle some tough challenges. We absolutely would not do that if we had a child we did not think could handle it. As a perfect example, recently while at a classmate’s birthday party we told a parent that we told our son about death, war, and guns when my grandfather passed away recently. We took our son to the funeral and he saw the body and quietly sat through the hour and a half event. Of course, the parent was horrified that we exposed our son to that. We only did it because we knew he could handle it. He does very well at handling death (our dog passed away as well) and understands what it means. Of course, he asked us the dreaded question, “I don’t want to die.” to which we answered, “you don’t have to worry about that for a very long time. Mommy and Daddy are much older than you and we don’t have to worry about dying either.” And that was that. Again, if we had a child that we did not think could handle that, of course, we would not have exposed him.
Bottom line: You have to do what’s right for your child (not yourself). Don’t be afraid to challenge their comfort zones. And no matter how much you think you know other people’s kids, you don’t live with them 24×7, so you should never judge.
6. Your general thoughts on the matter?
Being overprotective or coddling is a very passionate topic of mine. Unfortunately, given the complexity of this topic my responses to these questions are far from complete. However, I do think we may be seeing things swinging back to center a bit (which isn’t that the case for a lot of things–swing to both extremes before coming to center, then rinse-and-repeat). While we may be slightly more extreme than today’s norm, I think we are surrounded by many parents that are more like us than what’s considered over-protective.
‘It’s time to stop blaming your parents’ and your other garbage. Please stop posting rubbish on the internet.
My general thoughts on the matter, as a non-parent gearing up for parenthood, is to give them enough rope to make mistakes, but not enough to hang themselves.
I’ve decided that the only people who act like they’re perfect parents are people who don’t have kids.
Let the kidsw enjoy the game. Stuff the score.