I am a lenient parent. Some of you might be appalled if you saw what I let my kids get away with. If they don't want to eat at supper time, they don't have to. If they get hungry later, they get to eat. They don't get spanked. I've given them little, minuscule smacks before, but that's it. If they aren't tired, they can watch TV til 1 in the morning. I really don't care. They still have to get up though.
My kids have lots of toys, at least, the classic toys like paints and blocks, dress-up clothes, books etc... The concessions I have made to moderninity are video games and computer. I usually give My girls what they ask for. Why do I give them what they ask for? Because they never ask for anything. My daughter Claudia is about the most unmaterialistic kid you'd ever want to meet. Much less materialistic than her mother. My younger daughter very rarely asks for something when we go to a store. As a matter-of-fact, I can't remember the last time she asked for anything.
And I'll tell you, my kids are the kind of kids that you would choose to have at your house if for some reason you were forced to babysit someone but were able to choose who you had to babysit. They are very well-behaved. People call my older daughter an 'old soul'. And when I tell people at the daycare how rambunctious my younger one is at home, they look startled and seem skeptical.
I do not have lists of chores and reward charts and the punishments all mapped out. I expect things from my children but what I expect is that they are good at heart and that I will not have to make them do anything, there is no need because they already want to do what is right.
This might appear to other people that I am raising my children with a lack of discipline and direction, yet my older daughter is very disciplined. She always turns her homework in, always has it done, she gets straight A's and she has never gotten in trouble one time in school and she has finished 4 grades so far.
Okay, before I go on, I'm not trying to imply that either myself or my daughters are perfect. (Do you actually think that I am going to admit our flaws? I'm not but trust me, we have them.) There are plenty of things that I think that I could have done better and plenty of things that I think I could do better with now. I am not here to talk about that. What I am trying to illustrate is that my child-rearing practices seem to flout traditional methods yet for some reason, I am ending up with the results that parents using more punitive measures are trying to achieve. So I am not going to talk about my 'failures'...at least not today.
I worked with a woman who, when she was pregnant, talked quite a lot about how her child was not going to be a spoiled brat and I spent many evenings patiently listening to her talk about the methods that she would use to ensure her well-disciplined child. Though I applauded her ambition I was a little confused as to why she she was already expecting an unborn child to be a brat and thinking of ways to thwart the childs 'evil proclivities'. I honestly never expected my children to be bad. I knew that they would make mistakes and do bad things, but I never thought that they would be bad. And they aren't.
(I keep bringing up my older daughter because I think that I don't know how my younger one is going to be yet. I don't expect her to be a problem child or anything but I don't want to have to eat my words later.) But anyway, is my older daughter good because I expected her to be? If I had expected her to be bad and steeled myself for battles and wars would I have had a daughter who was less well-behaved than the daughter I ended up with?
Obviously, there is no way that I will ever know this. But my hunch is that part of the reason that she is a good child is because this is what we expected from her. People speak of having high expectations for your child and as best as I can tell they mean expecting good grades and exemplary behavior. I never expected these things from my children. I expected them to be good people and assumed that these things would follow, and they have.
My younger daughter has thrown a fit in public twice. Both times it was my fault, she was hungry. I shouldn't have let her get so hungry. My older daughter did it twice too. The first time she was coming down with something. The second time was right after her sister was born and she was trying to get used to not being the only child. Both times, I was glared at by people who seemed to expect me to....I don't know? Spank them? Yell at them? Stop it somehow? Stop a small child from having a meltdown indeed!
There is actually a lot of pressure on parents to be mean to their children. It's subtle but it's there. Did you hear about the flight attendent who put the mother and her 18 month old baby off the plane because the baby wouldn't stop talking? He wasn't crying, he was talking. I think a lot of people have the attitude that the flight attendent have, but aren't bold enough to say anything.
When I talk about what I bought my children for Christmas I get knowing looks, they seem to think that I realize that I am spoiling my children but that I can't quite control myself. They chuckle indulgently, they think that they are laughing with me. Little do they know that I don't think that I am spoiling my children by making sure that they have materials in the home that will help them learn the things that they need to learn during whatever developmental stage that they happen to be in at that time.
Well, I have run out of time. I will finish......hopefully tomorrow. I will be reading you tonight too.....unless I get too busy. Expect comments some time soon. (I know you live for my comments!)
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11 comments:
I was a good, well behaved kid until 15. I was too scared not to be. I also never talked. Once I started talking, I stopped behavior. There is leniency and there is neglect. There is strictness and there is cruelty. I still don't know you per se, but I bet you are an amazing parent.
Hey BBE!
Sorry I ain't been around much, school and work have been a hassle and I have barely even sat down much to write.
ANYHOW!
I think you sound like a pretty good parent, that is the style I would go for too. You know it's funny, I think my parents raised me this way a bit too. (I never asked for anything either, but my brother would... He turned out maybe more agressive than I did.)
I really can't criticize very many parents at all. After all, there are as probably as many good parenting approaches as there are parents, and the individual has to sort out what works best for him or her and the offspring.
I do understand what you mean about pressure on parents to be mean to their children. One of the things that has really come into vogue is parents spying on their children--going through their things, surveilling them, et cetera. This is supposedly to guard against drugs (often the same drugs the parents were doing when they were a little older). It might help in some cases where a child has had a past substance abuse issue, but parents are told to do that with good kids that obviously haven't been using drugs (no stupor, no smell, no loss of motor control or function, no slurred speech, no repetitions body movements, no excessive blinking or shirt-sleeve wiping, no nothing.
On top of that, parents have been instructed through PSAs (the ones that leap to mind right now are the ones that air on NBC with actors giving "tips" on how to parent) to lie to their children about their own drug histories.
To me, the message to parents is that you can't trust your kids. Kids likewise find out that their parents lie, but that their lies are irrelevant because they are authority. Seems like we're told not to respect anyone, anymore.
Wisepersoninmylife tells me we get 50% of what we expect and 50% of what we reflect.
I'm not so certain he's right about that one.....but I get his point.
Sounds like you have a whole lotta reasons to be proud for your girls!
And Happy almost birthday to your daughter!
EOTR-Actually, my daughter worries me a little bit because she seems too good sometimes. I'm don't think she's scared of us, I think that the pressure that she puts on herself to be a perfectionist is something that comes from inside of her. We've certainly never pushed her to be that way though we are proud of her for doing so good. I worry sometimes that people will take advantage of her if she doesn't learn to speak her mind a little more. But I suppose it will all work itself out in time.
Trevor-I figured that you were busy. Yeah, you know, sometimes I think that parents are strict with their chilren because they are afraid of all the type A personalities out there. They are afraid that if they aren't tough on their kids that their kids will not be tough enough and will be walked all over. Personally, I think that self-respect is what keeps one from being walked on in most situations.
X-I was hoping that this post would not have a tone of self-righteousness to it. I think that there are different methods of parenting that work equally well. I know a little girl who goes to school with my daughter whose parents are much stricter than I am and she's a great kid too. I think there are different ways t5o reach the same goal. You sort of have to do what is natural for you.
I know what you mean by the parents who spy on their kids. My sister has a friend that does this. She started doing it after she figured out that her daughter had posted her address on her myspace page. I have a cousin who ran away with someone he met on the internet. He was 17 and the guy was 35. I believe that he was a predator. That is something that parents have no experience with...computers. They are scary for parents. But I am not for spying on your kids. When my sister told me what her friend did, it sounded so wrong.
I've seen things on the news, little exposes, "What are your kids up to? Watch this and find out!) I always think to myself...probably the same things I was up to. I did so many things when I was young that it's difficult for me to beleive that my kids could pull the wool over my eyes. I also think that maybe this kept my son from sneaking around furtively and doing 'bad things'.....he knew that I would know.
Mel-I agree with himself. I think most people are good. Maybe I'm naive. I guess the reason I think that is because I expect people to do messed up things at the same time. I don't think that if you do something wrong that you are bad. I think more than likely you are confused or dysfunctional and that you would be doing better if you knew how.
I would like to change the part where it says 5 comments to 5 pithy observations...how do I do this?
Who can say? I definitely can't. I tried every-which way and so far our metaphorical house is all over the place. Anyway! If it's working for you work with it and great. I mean that- nice to hear.
Y;-) Paddy
Oh Dear. I hope that I didn't sound self-righteous. My girls aren't teenagers yet. And also, I have considered the fact that maybe this is just how my kids are. At any rate, I wasn't done yet so if I did sound self-righteous I have the second part of the post to dig myself out.
I personally think it's better to learn from the world to be tough, rather than have your familly be mean to you just to achieve that. You are totally right about self respect being the key. Some parents just don't by that, and look back to the old school, you know, "spare the rod and spoil the child" and other old testament sayings.
Just remebering this will make me hate religion again for the next month. But not god, just the whole religion part.
Oh yeah... While they are kids, you may not want to admit to your mistakes, but when you get a little older and your still writing, dig in. The truth makes the best writing so often. Especially if things aren't that bad and you can have a sense of humor about it. But I do understand not wanting to do that now. Beside, some things that you think might be mistakes might actually be nothing and no big deal.
Glad to see you again, friend, hectic around here, but settling. I might have to move soon, out to lansing and go to MSU (sparty on!), instead of wayne state. Not a bad choice to make. But it will mean about a dozen to twenty credits lost, so maybe I'll just be a commuting student.
Anyway, take care and see you soon.
Eric-I've been awfully busy too. Well, I'm always busy. I just don't have time for anything. its a little depressing sometimes but...what are you going to do? I wish I was going back to college. Have fun wherever you end up going. I I loved scyool untill I started taking science classes.
I'm an English major, of course. I'm attending Wayne State U in Downtown D, but things are weird around my house lately. I might move to Lansing Michigan and finish at least my BA there, or maybe live there, drive an hour and a half to D and still attend Wayne. Everything is up in the air. Actually, I have to pay my bill right now for the summer semester. Later!
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