I recently had a friend bemoan that they felt like they were being a bad parent. I dropped by for tea to catch up and had the chance to observe them in action. I could see nothing wrong with the quality of their parenting, but I did notice something about the quantity. Each child develops at different rates, and move complexly different aspects of each child develop at different rates. One of the biggest joys of parenting is being able to do things for someone that you love, but it is also a selfish trap. The more you do for them, the more you inhibit the development of their independence, (and frankly, you just help to make them lazy and in some cases entitled selfish brats.)
"You don't own your children: They are lent to you." This was a little parental maxim that is probably quite an old coping mechanism to help with the death of a child. Just as, "One day at a time" can help addicts focus on just putting one foot in front of the other - not looking too far into the future. Parenting should be, (in my bias opinion) arming each child with the best opportunity for independence. (Obviously you are also juggling many other aspects as well [1] as trying to create future successful parents. I have yet to find a "its good manners" that isn't designed to eventually make a child a more desirable spouse, which may be worth considering over-hauling). Are you trying to create considerate productive members of society?
Whether it is parental habit or some unconscious desire for a simpler time when they, (your children) simply robbed you of sleep and coated you in vomit and poo - (yes that can feel preferential to dealing with teenagers) - it takes a disciplined mind to force yourself to realise that supervision of tasks can be a better form of parenting than selfishly [2] performing those tasks that your child is perfectly capable of doing. Also watch out for any cultural biases that you are bringing to the table - I still see parents teaching domestic skills to their children if they are girls and forgetting to pass on those skills if they are boys. The two push-backs that I hear are, "girls need to learn to do laundry so that by the time they reach menarche they don't have to be embarrassed and can wash their underwear/sheets." to which I say: many boys have the same issue, but its brown and a lack of sufficient disgust to clean themselves and starts when they are born, not just at puberty. The other is, "girls like to be clean and boys don't care." to which I say: surely you just argued that boys need more instruction than girls. If your child was a different gender would you baby them as much? Help your child be the hero that they want to be, not the toy that you want them to be.
One of my heroes of child-care, "R" demonstrated a shockingly impressive skill at rebutting a random request for sweets, (candy) with a perfectly timed, "What are you going to do in exchange?" This created a wonderful discussion the spiraled off on many levels. The children between the ages of 7 and 12 stated to philosophise about barter and supply-and-demand without ever having to study the works of Adam Smith from this single reply, (the parents and other adults that were in the room that could see R's mastery were rightfully in awe of R's handling of the question-that-was-hidden-in-a-request.) Many concluded that they would said yes or no depending on the circumstances, but the thing that impressed me the most was how R surprised everyone else by choosing another, more productive path. (Also the way she said it echoed so many years of dealing with children that can only be called wisdom.)
Children provide a seemingly constant stream of requests, and as adults it can be easy to take them on face value as needs. Often they are simply chances for social development. "Can I have chocolate cake for every meal of the day?" can seem like an amusing request, ( I'm sure most of us have had that thought ourselves, somewhere between being born and now ;-) and fielding that is easy. The water-shed between good parenting are those, "I really don't know if this is permissible?" questions that are hidden as requests, "Can I watch television?", "Can I have a bag of crisps?" I remember once I posed the question to a librarian, "Do you have any old books?" who was sorting through a repository. They paused for a moment, hunted and then handing me an old book with, "I can let you have this one." - They though I meant, "do you have any books that are no longer needed that I may own?" but the intent of my question was, "I'm interested in comparing older styles of writing in the English language." I was very happy to have a new book - see ambiguity hides everywhere: It wasn't a new book, it was an old book that was new to me. Before answering a child's question, we have to remind ourselves that "Can I have...." is a new book to them and each reply both sets a precedence and at the same time instructs them how to write the story of their life.
How often is it true that "yes" is a gift to ourselves and "no" is a gift for them?
[1] In the past a parent had the additional tool of religion; an old weapon against ignorance that has been retired by science, no no hold on and finish reading, enabling us to separate explaining the unknown from any personal spiritual practice that we may require. The problem is that, "Wash your hands, because God is watching." has to be replaced with, "Wash your hands because even if you didn't just spend the hour before lunch digging holes in the garden with our bare hands, invisible bacteria and even airborne spores and viruses will have been landing on your hands and multiplying and you want to have regular intervals during each day to hamper their attempts to reaching quorum, and washing your hands before meals and after going to the loo turns out to be a great way to do that each day, (as well as reducing the horrible things that can happen to your community if you do not make an effort to control how much poo is ending up in your mouth.) There was probably a religion or culture that didn't demand that children wash their hands, and they are all dead now due to cholera. So you don't have to wash your hands because you might have transferred faeces to your hands when you last wiped your arse to protect yourself, you have to do it because it would really suck if all of those around you died of typhoid because of your selfishness or basic day-dreaming your way through your own life without being sufficiently mindful. Sometimes it is just more effective to have an imaginary invisible force watching over us to help motivate our better nature, (or at least to inhibit the other parts of ourselves.)
[2] Parental selfishness isn't demanding that your child does its homework at the weekend while you binge watch something, or demanding that they eat their vegetables while you keep the chocolate spread for when they are at school. Its when you fail to prevent yourself from falling back into the well worn habits that you developed while they grew from a baby into a young person, while you feel like you are, (give or take a few aching bones [3]) basically the same age as you were when they were born. Parenting is the most thankless job anyone has ever inflicted upon themselves. Your training is ZERO, how ever many classes you think you took. Your first customer starts by literally shitting on you and keeping you up at nights; and to top it off, as your own body starts to falter, if not fail they are providing an every changing set of challenges that may feel like you have to re-write the rule-book every day, if not every hour, while saying the same things over and over like a broken record to someone that just seems to get stronger. Metaphorically, remember that teaching your children to fish is more help to them than grasping to some sense of worth or meaningfulness by showing, (or worse invisibly) proving to yourself indispensable. If they need help, then help them! Otherwise gently empower them with, "You are old enough to [*so many unspoken words live here*] do that yourself."
[3] oh you feel fine? *laughs* give it time... (unless you manage to remember that your yoga/taichi is for you: gym memberships will always laps - personal energy work is parenting for your own body.)
"You don't own your children: They are lent to you." This was a little parental maxim that is probably quite an old coping mechanism to help with the death of a child. Just as, "One day at a time" can help addicts focus on just putting one foot in front of the other - not looking too far into the future. Parenting should be, (in my bias opinion) arming each child with the best opportunity for independence. (Obviously you are also juggling many other aspects as well [1] as trying to create future successful parents. I have yet to find a "its good manners" that isn't designed to eventually make a child a more desirable spouse, which may be worth considering over-hauling). Are you trying to create considerate productive members of society?
Whether it is parental habit or some unconscious desire for a simpler time when they, (your children) simply robbed you of sleep and coated you in vomit and poo - (yes that can feel preferential to dealing with teenagers) - it takes a disciplined mind to force yourself to realise that supervision of tasks can be a better form of parenting than selfishly [2] performing those tasks that your child is perfectly capable of doing. Also watch out for any cultural biases that you are bringing to the table - I still see parents teaching domestic skills to their children if they are girls and forgetting to pass on those skills if they are boys. The two push-backs that I hear are, "girls need to learn to do laundry so that by the time they reach menarche they don't have to be embarrassed and can wash their underwear/sheets." to which I say: many boys have the same issue, but its brown and a lack of sufficient disgust to clean themselves and starts when they are born, not just at puberty. The other is, "girls like to be clean and boys don't care." to which I say: surely you just argued that boys need more instruction than girls. If your child was a different gender would you baby them as much? Help your child be the hero that they want to be, not the toy that you want them to be.
One of my heroes of child-care, "R" demonstrated a shockingly impressive skill at rebutting a random request for sweets, (candy) with a perfectly timed, "What are you going to do in exchange?" This created a wonderful discussion the spiraled off on many levels. The children between the ages of 7 and 12 stated to philosophise about barter and supply-and-demand without ever having to study the works of Adam Smith from this single reply, (the parents and other adults that were in the room that could see R's mastery were rightfully in awe of R's handling of the question-that-was-hidden-in-a-request.) Many concluded that they would said yes or no depending on the circumstances, but the thing that impressed me the most was how R surprised everyone else by choosing another, more productive path. (Also the way she said it echoed so many years of dealing with children that can only be called wisdom.)
Children provide a seemingly constant stream of requests, and as adults it can be easy to take them on face value as needs. Often they are simply chances for social development. "Can I have chocolate cake for every meal of the day?" can seem like an amusing request, ( I'm sure most of us have had that thought ourselves, somewhere between being born and now ;-) and fielding that is easy. The water-shed between good parenting are those, "I really don't know if this is permissible?" questions that are hidden as requests, "Can I watch television?", "Can I have a bag of crisps?" I remember once I posed the question to a librarian, "Do you have any old books?" who was sorting through a repository. They paused for a moment, hunted and then handing me an old book with, "I can let you have this one." - They though I meant, "do you have any books that are no longer needed that I may own?" but the intent of my question was, "I'm interested in comparing older styles of writing in the English language." I was very happy to have a new book - see ambiguity hides everywhere: It wasn't a new book, it was an old book that was new to me. Before answering a child's question, we have to remind ourselves that "Can I have...." is a new book to them and each reply both sets a precedence and at the same time instructs them how to write the story of their life.
How often is it true that "yes" is a gift to ourselves and "no" is a gift for them?
[1] In the past a parent had the additional tool of religion; an old weapon against ignorance that has been retired by science, no no hold on and finish reading, enabling us to separate explaining the unknown from any personal spiritual practice that we may require. The problem is that, "Wash your hands, because God is watching." has to be replaced with, "Wash your hands because even if you didn't just spend the hour before lunch digging holes in the garden with our bare hands, invisible bacteria and even airborne spores and viruses will have been landing on your hands and multiplying and you want to have regular intervals during each day to hamper their attempts to reaching quorum, and washing your hands before meals and after going to the loo turns out to be a great way to do that each day, (as well as reducing the horrible things that can happen to your community if you do not make an effort to control how much poo is ending up in your mouth.) There was probably a religion or culture that didn't demand that children wash their hands, and they are all dead now due to cholera. So you don't have to wash your hands because you might have transferred faeces to your hands when you last wiped your arse to protect yourself, you have to do it because it would really suck if all of those around you died of typhoid because of your selfishness or basic day-dreaming your way through your own life without being sufficiently mindful. Sometimes it is just more effective to have an imaginary invisible force watching over us to help motivate our better nature, (or at least to inhibit the other parts of ourselves.)
[2] Parental selfishness isn't demanding that your child does its homework at the weekend while you binge watch something, or demanding that they eat their vegetables while you keep the chocolate spread for when they are at school. Its when you fail to prevent yourself from falling back into the well worn habits that you developed while they grew from a baby into a young person, while you feel like you are, (give or take a few aching bones [3]) basically the same age as you were when they were born. Parenting is the most thankless job anyone has ever inflicted upon themselves. Your training is ZERO, how ever many classes you think you took. Your first customer starts by literally shitting on you and keeping you up at nights; and to top it off, as your own body starts to falter, if not fail they are providing an every changing set of challenges that may feel like you have to re-write the rule-book every day, if not every hour, while saying the same things over and over like a broken record to someone that just seems to get stronger. Metaphorically, remember that teaching your children to fish is more help to them than grasping to some sense of worth or meaningfulness by showing, (or worse invisibly) proving to yourself indispensable. If they need help, then help them! Otherwise gently empower them with, "You are old enough to [*so many unspoken words live here*] do that yourself."
[3] oh you feel fine? *laughs* give it time... (unless you manage to remember that your yoga/taichi is for you: gym memberships will always laps - personal energy work is parenting for your own body.)
