• Wanna protect that kid? Get him some lip balm!

    Why My Kindergartener Will Not Be Getting Fingerprinted

    My Sophia is upset. You see, today at school the local police will be taking the fingerprints of all kindergarteners whose parents signed a permission slip for them to do so. Her father and I have not and will not grant permission for our 5 year old’s fingerprints to be taken. Which means that Sophia will be left sitting somewhere by herself while the rest of the kids get inked up. And she doesn’t want to be made to left out like that. I guess that this will just have to be an early lesson in the importance of standing up for something you believe in – even if it means being the only one left out. (Frankly, I had assumed that other parents would refuse to allow their children’s fingerprints to be taken. However, Michaela told me that last year she was the only kid in her class who didn’t get their fingerprints taken. She says she cried and put her head down for a minute and then decided that it was ok. She’s awesome like that.)

    As I explained to Sophia and Michaela last night, there are several reasons that I won’t consider allowing the police to take my children’s fingerprints. First of all, there is just no reason to. The police and school see this as a safety precaution, but taking a kid’s fingerprints doesn’t protect them from any harm. There’s not one terrible event which could be prevented by having my kid’s handprint on file. Even if something really awful were to happen to her, fingerprints could only help police to make an identification. But even then, this would only help if she were still alive or her body had been found within a relatively short time of death before decay set in. And even if that were the case, other means of identification are available: pictures, DNA. So, the usefulness of having her fingerprints on file is pretty much nil.

    Even more than that, I think that the whole notion that it is reasonable or responsible to plan for the sort of events where having quick access to her fingerprints is corrosive in and of itself. You would never know it from watching the news or observing many parents, but our kids are safer today than they have been in decades. Crime – including crimes against children - have dropped precipitously from their high points in the early 90s. Yet rather than celebrating the fact that we live in a time where our children are so safe, we live in fear. And we pass that fear on to our kids.

    Kids don’t have access to crime statistics, but they are sharp enough to understand that if we are taking their fingerprints “just in case”, it’s because there is a real chance that they will be needed. And yes, terrible things do happen. But close to 95% of violence against children occurs at the hands of people they know – often in their own homes. The chances of any particular child being the victim of crime in any other context are vanishingly remote. To put this into perspective, more than three times as many people are struck by lightning each year in the USA than there are children kidnapped by strangers each year. To make plans for this sort of “just in case” event would be much like buying clothing designed to conduct electricity in the event of a lightning strike. It happens, but not so often that we prepare for it!

    And this fear that we have about our kid’s safety isn’t harmless. We have a very real childhood obesity epidemic, but every parent worries that if they allow their child outside without a keeper neighbors will talk and CPS might even be called. My brothers and sisters and I used to wander all over town and the neighbors never thought it was a problem! Well, there was that one time my mom got a call telling her that I was sitting on my bike on the corner eating candy – a sure sign I wasn’t supposed to have candy and had probably stolen coins to buy it with. But even though I was statistically more likely to have been the victim of crime as a child back in the 80s than my kids are today, no one thought my mother was negligent or putting us in danger to let us walk to the park by ourselves. These days people sometimes call 911 to report a child sighted out and about without an adult keeping watch. This is not healthy for us as a society or for our kids.

    I want my kids to grow up to be strong, confident people who can move through their world freely, not afraid of shadows and boogey-men because my fear kept them from being given the chance to learn basic competance. So, I am philosophically and morally opposed to behaving as if my children are in ever-present danger. And getting fingerprinted is just one little thing on top of a bunch of other things which all create a culture of fear and helplessness for our kids. I’ve also refused to allow their pictures to be kept on file at the police station for quick distribution in case they go missing. They’ll just have to make do with the ones from our phones that we take all the time. My kids are the only children I’ve ever seen exploring the cool dead tree out in the field by our house – a kid’s playground if ever there was one. And my advice to parents who worried about their kids and the pile of sticks the previous resident left in our backyard was always, “just don’t watch.” (No one ever got hurt although I did have to institute a rule that sticks for play couldn’t be taller than the person using it, thicker than their wrist or thinner than their pinky. But this was mostly for the sake of my poorly parented neighbor kids who thought it was funny to deliberately hurt people.) As far as I can tell, I’m about the only parent on my kid’s bus route that doesn’t walk them to the bus stop and back. (I was shocked one morning when the bus was late and I drove my girls in – at the end of every driveway that the bus stops at along the way parents were sitting in their cars with their kids! And this is a bus that takes everyone from K-12 to school – not just the elementary kids. And it was 30 degrees out – hardly dangerous weather her in Wisconsin!) I teach my kids that it’s OK to talk with people they don’t know, but that they can never go anywhere with anyone without talking with me first – even someone they know. Which is not only safe, but common courtesy. I even – gasp – allow my kids to sled without helmets.

    I know, I’m a terrible mother. But I’d rather be a terrible mother with competent kids than a “good” mother whose kids never get to practice being independent or taking small risks. I do not want my kids living in fear or thinking that it is normal to arrange life out of fear of things that could, but almost certainly won’t happen. One of the best illustrations of how insane and counter-productive our collective fear for our children is comes from a letter published by Lenore Skenazy on her indispensable blog Free Range Kids:

    I asked [a fireman] about the red reflective circles that we all used to have on our bedroom windows in the ’70s and ’80s — remember those? — to alert firefighters there might be children in those rooms. “Why don’t we have those anymore?” I asked.

    He hemmed and hawed for a minute before he responded something to the effect that “society” anymore doesn’t really approve of those. “Society?” I was thinking. “What part of society could object to notifying firefighters where children sleep…?”

    Aha. It sunk into my thick (Free-Range reinforced) skull: By having red stickers in kids’ bedroom windows, we would be advertising to all predators that a child lives in this house! Of course, there is no other way for a predator to know where a child lives. The chalk designs on the sidewalk, the bikes in the garage, never mind all the comings and goings of the family. None of those communicate that there are children as much as that red dot in the window. Why, predators would be lining up — or climbing in!

    Now, given that more than 90% of child sexual abuse cases and more than 95% of child abduction cases involve someone the child knows — many of whom are family members — most predators not only know where the child lives, but also where she sleeps. The firefighter told me that those red dots were helpful back in the day, showing firefighters where to put their ladders to track down children as quickly as possible. But “society” has chosen to protect us from potential boogey men instead of fires.

    This is the world we are creating by indulging in fear. When (fake) Dear Abby advises taking a picture of your child each morning just in case he or she goes missing that day. When we safety-proof playgrounds to the point that they are no longer fun to play on and our kids don’t know how to engage in gross motor activities safely. Or when we take fingerprints of our 5 year old children just in case . . .

    The reality is that terrible things happen. Terrible things will always happen. It’s part of life. I’m not super-human. I’m not God. I can take reasonable precautions against predictable tragedies, but I will never be able to make my kids or myself completely safe. It’s not my job and trying to do so is itself quite predictably harmful.

    Besides, I prefer to direct my paranoia towards more realistic targets. For example, the real reason the police want everyone’s fingerprints on file has nothing to do with child safety – that’s just an easy, guilt-laden cover. They know perfectly well that there’s pretty much no practical safety-related reason to fingerprint 5 year olds. The fact of the matter is that the most likely use of my kid’s fingerprints would be to catch her if she were to commit a crime in ten years. Or if she were present in a place where a crime was committed – perhaps not even when it was committed! Innocent people have been convicted on less. Or they may be used by an identity thief looking for a way to get through biometric security. Or even for an out-of-control government keeping an increasingly unruly populace under its thumb so that the rich can live in peace. Maybe it’s not a real threat today. But how about ten years from now? Twenty? God willing, she has the genes to still be kicking around in 80 or 90 years and there’s no way that I can guess what will be going on then. I mean, good heavens – there could be a Marxist Kenyan bent on destroying all that is good and holy in office by then – bwahahaha! But whatever happens, it won’t involve a set of fingerprints kept on file from when she was 5.

  • Wasn't Noah Cute?

    Children: What’s the return on investment?

    Wasn't Noah Cute?

    I clipped this essay out of the local paper 10 years ago and don’t know who the original author is, but wanted to share:

    For all parents and grandparents . . .

    The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140. This does not touch college tuition.

    For those with kids, that figure leads to wild fantasies about all the money we could have banked if not for (insert child’s name here). For others, that number might confirm the decision to remain childless.

    But $160,140 isn’t so bad if you break it down. It translates into $8,896.66 a year, $741.38 a month, or $171.08 a week. That’s a mere $24.44 a day – just over $1 an hour.

    Still, you might think the best financial advice says don’t have children if you want to be “rich”. It is just the opposite.

    What do you get for your $160,140?

    Naming rights. First, middle and last.

    Glimpses of God every day.

    Giggles under the covers every night.

    More love than your heart can hold.

    Butterfly kisses and velcro hugs.

    Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds and warm cookies.

    A hand to hold, usually covered with jam.

    A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kits, building sandcastles and skipping down the sidewalk in the pouring rain.

    Someone to laugh yourself silly with no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

    For $160,140 you never have to grow up. You get to finger-pain, carve pumpkins, play hide-and-seek, catch lightning bugs, and never stop believing in Santa Claus.

    You have an excuse to keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh, watching Saturday morning cartoons, going to Disney movies and wishing on stars.

    You get to frame rainbows, hearts and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, handprints set in clay for Mother’s Day and cards with backward letters for Father’s Day.

    For $160, 140 there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof, taking the training wheels off the bike, removing a splinter, filling the wading pool, coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

    You get a front row seat to history to witness the first step, first word, first bra, first date, and first time behind the wheel.

    You get to be immortal. You get another branch on your family tree, and if you’re lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren.

    You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications and human sexuality that no college can match.

    In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there with God.

    You have all the power to heal a boo boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits so one day they will, like you, love without counting the cost.

  • blk-father

    God is father to the fatherless. We just call ‘em bastards.

    I used to know a woman who did parent education with low-income, teen moms.  One day we were talking about teaching basic nutrition and moms putting soda in baby bottles (something which is simply unimaginable to the sort of moms I hang out with).  She explained to me, “usually she is trying to be nice to her baby.  She likes soda.  She’s a teen so she thinks everyone is making a big deal out of nothing if they say soda is bad.  And really, she just wants to give the baby something that they will enjoy having.  Then the baby is quiet and she feels like a good mom.”

    And I thought about it and kind of nodded my head.  Obviously, we’re talking about mom-kid who is fatherless and has probably been abused.   Her own mother who was probably the same.  There’s actually a developmental point where a baby who wants to share starts to understand that what she likes isn’t always the right thing to offer to someone else.  But that happens in toddlerhood.  And then for a little while I decided that these girls must be really messed up to think it was just being nice to let their babies drink cola.  Until I reminded myself that I regularly let my kids drink out of my coffee mug and will even make them their own mini-cup as a treat.  Um, maybe they are just adolescents with really bad taste and a teenaged perspective on life doing what many parents do sometimes?  Many people do say that adolescence and toddlerhood are pretty much the same thing after all.  Continue reading »

  • encouragement

    Raise a child up and whaaaaa?

    Train a child up in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. ~ Proverbs 22:6

    Awww, isn't he just precious? Bless his heart.

    This is a much used and much abused scripture verse when it comes to parenting.  Many parents hold onto it while raising their kids and think it means “If I teach him right from wrong, he’ll stay on the straight and narrow.”  These same parents all too often find themselves wondering if maybe this was one of those bible verses which shouldn’t be taken too literally some years later.  Sometimes it can be the source of a great deal of heartache.  But there are several problems with the way this verse is often read.

    First of all, there’s the “in the way that he should go” issue.  I have written before about how our children come with their own personalities, needs and journeys to walk.  Teaching kids right and wrong is a small part of parenting.  It simply says “this is how people should behave.” That’s an entirely different issue than actually raising a kid.  To raise a kid, we need to show them ”here’s how to walk the path you will need to walk.” 

    The word “way” – Hebrew darkow – indicates a path or journey.  When used in reference to God it indicates his way of doing things.  We will each have our own way of doing what God requires of us.  This is what we need to prepared for.  Simply exhorting good behavior and punishing bad isn’t going to cut it, imo.

    Secondly, it should be noted that the promise’s fulfillment is “when he is old”.  Continue reading »

  • Rolling your eyes is a good parenting technique

    Collin is learning to be a really funny, crabby 45 year old man. Unfortunately he's stuck being 12 at the moment.

    Want to do something amazing for your relationship with your kids?  Engage in this thought exercise:

    Think of a good friend; someone you genuinely like and care about.  (Don’t use your spouse – too many in-law issues!)  What sort of parent would you want for that friend? If you were somehow able to go back and parent your friend yourself, how would you do it?

    I have found that by looking at a friend, who I don’t really have a vested interest in trying to change, I can envision what it would look like for me to parent with more patience, wisdom and acceptance.  It’s helped me come to see my kids for what they are.  They are their own persons who have ultimate authority to decide for themselves what sort of people they want to be and what sort of lives they want to live. What they are not, are extensions of me or proof of the worth of my life or even my skills as a parent.  They might even know better than me sometimes!

    This is so clear to us when dealing with any human being other than a child.  Then we are prone to going into whatever our version of full-blown panicked-tyranny mode is to cow them into pleasing us.  And that’s hard on both parent and child.  Even as a kid it always seemed to me that both my father and my grandfather would have liked to be more gentle and empathetic than they were to their children.  But they were convinced that if they didn’t make sure we stayed not just on the straight and narrow but on the painted line ride in the middle of the road, all hell would break loose.  But, I’ve been letting my kids wander all over the countryside surrounding the road for a while now and my father himself has commented positively on the results.  (Not that he doesn’t have some reservations, but then again, so do I!)  And it turns out that I was right about my dad too – seeing him hold one of his grandkids is a beautiful thing.  Big softie.

    One of my proudest parenting moments was when Continue reading »

  • What sort of garden do you grow?

    The best parenting analogy I have heard compared having a child to being given a plant.  Some plants are more demanding to grow than others.  Some are more sensitive to change.  Some must be nurtured for many seasons before they will show their flowers and bear their fruit.  Others are easy and sunny and thrive on neglect.  We create a lot of trouble when we try to force the artichoke plant that shows up to grow the way an oak tree grows.  After all, who wouldn’t want to be an oak tree?  Well, an artichoke plant, for one.  Or it could just accept that he’s supposed to be an oak tree and be one unhappy, messed-up artichoke plant. 

    That is what is at stake as we parent: will we send a healthy, thriving plant out into the world?  Or will we be sending out an artichoke that knows all about how to be an oak tree and nothing about why he should want to be an artichoke.  It’s not easy.  We sometimes don’t know what sort of plant we’ve been given until something goes wrong.  Sometimes we were the ones sent out into the world with no concept of how to be who we are.  And gardening is frustrating.  You can nurture a plant to perfection only to have a rogue deer show up and eat the buds off.   Some plants are just ridiculously difficult to grow. 

    For me, I think of it this way: My job is to help my child learn to be the person they are made to be while living in this world.

  • Salt-N-Pepa-copy

    Let’s talk about sex, baby!

    Note: A few years back I did some writing for a now defunct Christian magazine.  I never put these articles up here because the magazine owns the rights to them, but now that they are defunct, well, I’m going to share!

    In the early ‘90s Salt-n-Peppa famously sang “Let’s talk about sex, baby” and boy, oh boy do we take their exhortations to heart.  Sex is everywhere.  Even young children are constantly barraged with images, information and messages about sex.

    Advertisers and entertainers are busy talking to your kids about sex – are you?  If not, it’s time to get started.

    The reasons people avoid talking with their kids about sex are myriad: squeamishness, fear of saying the wrong things, embarrassment over their own failures.  Unfortunately, there is a whole world out there which isn’t embarrassed to talk to your kids about sex and they don’t care if what they have to say is right or not.   With so much noise, you can’t afford not to be in on the conversation.

    If the idea of talking with your kids about sex is off-putting, consider something reassuring: your children need good, accurate information about human reproduction, but they can get that out of a book.  A lecture explaining the function of “Tab A” and “Slot B” isn’t what they need most from you.  What they need most from you is discussions about human sexuality.  They need to hear what is and isn’t OK and why.  They need talk about love, commitment and purity.   They need an ongoing discussion with Mom and Dad about what it means to be a healthy, Godly sexual person.

    This may seem like an impossible task which pits our cultural milieu against God’s unbending plan for sex.  However, you and God have more influence than you might think.  Polls asking teens and their parents what they think about sex have consistently found that parents and God come out better than might be expected.  A recent survey done by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy found that the number of teens who listed “parents” as having the greatest influence over their decisions regarding sex outnumbered those picking the next five choices combined.  Additionally, 90% of teens say that providing a strong message in support of abstinence is important.   71% also think that religious leaders have a role in teaching about sex.[1]   Your kids are listening and open to God’s message.

    What should you say to your kids and when?   We would do well to head God’s words in Deuteronomy 6:7 “Impress [these commandments] on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”  Ideally, your conversation should start as soon as they ask questions about babies and notice differences between men and women and continue on through to adulthood.  This is certainly a different approach than the traditional “birds and bees” talk at adolescence.  However, a billboard along your path advertising “Gentlemen’s” Clubs doesn’t care about your child’s tender age.  Don’t wait until everyone else has had their say to speak up.

    As to what to say to your kids, these core principles should guide you:

    • Stay positive.  God created sex as a beautiful gift, not something dirty or dangerous when used within the boundaries he proscribes.
    • Stay biblical.  God created sex for marriage.  Period.
    • Encourage the avoidance of temptation.  The enemy loves to use our God given desires to harm us.  When we play with temptations, we are cooperating with that mission.
    • Teach God’s superior vision of masculinity.  Almost any male is capable of virility.  However it takes real manliness to practice respect and self-restraint.
    • Teach God’s superior vision of femininity.  A woman who gives her body away will always find someone to tell her she’s beautiful.  A woman with strength and character will be found beautiful without giving her body away.
    • Allow for God’s mercy.  Romans 3:23-24 says “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace. . .”  If you speak condemnation over those who fall short, your child will see you as hard of heart and close his ears to your words.  God freely offers grace – you should to.

    Whether your child is 6 or 16, there’s already a conversation about sex going on.  Make sure you’re in on the discussion!


    [1] Bill Albert, (2007).  With One Voice: America’s Teens and Adults Sound Off About Teen Pregnancy.WashingtonD.C.: National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

     

     

  • baby hand

    What I think God would say about abortion

    I am not God (just in case you were confused – lol), but based on what I know about God and how he works – which admittedly may be all wrong – I have certain hypothesis about what God would want us to be saying about a variety of topics.  And although it may seem blasphemous to those who think that we already know all there is to know about God’s opinions on everything is, I’m going to share some.  If it’s crap, well, it can disappear into the cloud of the internet like everything else I write, so no harm no foul!  ;p

    On the topic of abortion,this is the sort of message I think that God would have us spread: in a truly good, loving world that was running as God intended it to, no woman would have cause to seek an elective abortion.  I think that even people who support abortion rights would agree that it would be better if no woman ever found herself in a situation where the best solution she can find is to subject herself to a physically and often emotionally invasive procedure like the termination of a pregnancy.  The fact that we do not live in that world should be taken as a sign that something is wrong.  The fact that we live in a country where more than one out of three women will make use of this procedure at least once in her lifetime should be taken as a sign that something is very wrong.

    I think that the moral arguments against abortion have been made to death and don’t need to be repeated.  But more important for this moment in time is offering some real advice and reality for each of us as individuals.  First of all, we need to understand that when a woman becomes pregnant it is not only a physical being that is created -  there is a soul involved.  When a soul enters into this world, God already knows the days of its life, its beginning and its end.  The purpose of this life for each soul is to grow and learn as much as they can or need to during their time as physical beings.  Which means that God is sending a lot of souls into this physical existence whose time is extremely truncated and whose chances to learn from this existence are very limited.  I believe that those souls who are placed into forming human bodies with the knowledge that their existence will be measured in weeks rather than years are offering their lives for the women who conceive them.

    Jesus said that there is no greater love that a person can have than to give up their lives for another.  Each of these souls is offering the ultimate expression of love – a willingness to exist in a body which will be sacrificed so that a woman can find a way forward in the event of an unplanned and potentially life-altering pregnancy.  This is a serious thing that is going on and should not be taken lightly.  We are a long way from living in a world where few or no women will make this decision, but if we are ever to find our way towards living in that sort of world, we need to start taking this mass love sacrifice of our children seriously.  If we are going to put a soul in the position to give their life like this, we need to honor their sacrifice.  We need to realize that each time this sacrifice is made, it should be so that a man and woman will stop and take a serious look at the way they are living their lives and making their decisions.

    Almost always an abortion should serve as a wake-up call for the people involved.  Rather than wasting time either experiencing or trying to inflict shame, the sacrifice that these loving souls are making should compel each of us ask ourselves some serious questions about our attitudes and choices.  Are we making choices that are not in line with where we are trying to go?  Are we trying to get someplace that doesn’t actually line up with what we believe is important in life?  Is there something about me or my life that is crying out to be changed?

    A large percentage of women who have abortions are already mothers.  I cannot imagine that any parent would want their child to deal with the sort of situation which leads a woman to seek an abortion.  Is there something that can be done differently in order to make it more likely that our own children will not face similar situations in their future?

    Even those who do will never be involved in an actual abortion should be asking ourselves some tough questions.  Do we use our money, power and influence, to the extent that we have any, to help make being a parent more manageable?  Are we parenting our own children in such a way that we are leaving them vulnerable to making choices which may one day lead their involvement in seeking an abortion?  A lack of love, understanding and patient instruction will do just that.

    Everything in life has a lesson to teach to those who are willing to look.  If abortion is ever to become less common, much less be eliminated, it will require us to start learning the lessons we need to learn.  It will require us to be willing to make changes in our lives and attitude and in what and how we teach our children.  The many souls which have made the ultimate sacrifice – giving up their own lives so that another might live – deserve at least that from us.

  • give-laundry-to-your-mom-cefjgijnacfhdfgk

    Mom’s Going Crazy Recipe

    Want to drive yourself crazy?  Do what I do: have a set of kids, wait 5 or 6 years and have another set.  Try to figure out if you screwed up the first set so you can better parent the second set.  It’s a terrible pastime, really; going back and revisiting every parenting decision you made along the way to try to judge the outcomes.  I used to wonder how people who had obviously screwed their kids up felt about the whole mess.  Now I find myself wondering if I put myself into that category by not doing things the way everyone else usually does them.

    I didn’t punish a lot.  I yelled, but always let the kids know that freaking out was a fault of mine and let them see me struggle with it.  I was more than willing to hold a firm line, but my end goal was always to gain agreement from my kids on the sort of people they should be trying to be.  I answered every “why” question I possibly could.  I spanked only to gain a kid’s attention, never as punishment and tried to refrain from it altogether.  I taught my values by explaining my opinion, giving a respectful explanation for the other side’s point of view and why I disagreed with it.  I would always remind them that one day they will have to choose what to believe for themselves.  I disciplined by correcting, explaining, listening, refusing to let things go when a kid persisted in a behavior that was a problem.  I tried to coach rather than criticize.

    Doesn’t that sound nice?  I thought so.  But here’s the thing: my boys were really difficult.  True story: I was telling a friend once about the time Collin, my younger son, was 4 years old and locked me out of the house.  We were all outside and I was working in the yard.  Collin had asked for a popcicle and I said no.  A few minutes later, he wasn’t nearby, so I went to check and see what he was doing.  I went to the house and could see Collin sitting on the kitchen floor eating a popcicle.  And I discovered that he had locked the door behind him.  At this point in the story, my wide-eyed friend actually gasps.  “My kids know they would be in so much trouble if they did something like that!” She tells me.

    I just had to laugh.  My kid knew they would get in trouble.  That’s why he locked the door – so he would have a chance to eat as much of the popcicle as he could before I got to him.  “That’s the difference between you kids and mine,” I explained to my friend, “your kids would actually care about getting in trouble.  Mine are just incredulous and offended that I have the temerity to stop them from doing whatever they want.”  My husband always blamed the boy’s obnoxiousness on them not being afraid of us.  Having kids who were afraid of the parents always sounded like a bad idea to me.  I dunno.  Maybe I was wrong.

    I recently asked my oldest (now 16) for an explanation of why he was so difficult as a kid.  He told me that it was the “why?” question that drove a lot of it.  If it didn’t make sense to him, then he didn’t see why he should do it.  If I got really worked up he would decide that he should comply just to humor me.  So, pretty much my worst critic’s view of what was going on was true.

    But then he went on.  He told me that he knows it was a lot more work to do things the way I did – by seeking compliance and answering every genuine “why” question I reasonably could.  And by coaching and coaxing rather than criticizing and punishing.  But he says he now credits that with being the reason he feels really prepared to meet the challenges that have and will come his way.  He says that when I would give him answers to his “why” questions, I was showing him how to think about and approach things.  In time he saw that I was right more than wrong and began to adopt more of my thought process for himself.  Some things I tried to impress on him (like the importance of cleaning up all the time), he still isn’t buying into.  And he will never be as emotional as I am.  And he’s still got a lot of growing up to do, but he said that even from his limited vantage point as a 16 year old, he found the way of thinking about things I had modeled to be very useful when he found himself dealing with people and situations which were foreign to him.  He said that he tested the things I had taught him against what he saw going on around him and found my guidance to be reliable.  He says my way was worth it.  Then again, he wasn’t on the receiving end of his non-compliance for all those years!

    Interestingly, he also tells me that there was an important role for the physical punishments we -particularly my husband – would sometimes impose when no other threats, punishments or corrections would work.  Sitting on the wall or holding their arms out for long enough to get very uncomfortable were regular events for a period of time during the late elementary and early middle school years.  I always felt bad about this because in an ideal parenting worlnd, a parent would not have to inflict suffering on their own child just to get them to co-operate with simple instructions.  And my son confirmed what I had long suspected: that he was rarely deterred much by the threat of punishment.  He said that it wasn’t that he didn’t think he would get in trouble – he was usually quite certain he would.  He said that in the middle of things, he didn’t care that he was going to get in trouble.  But he does credit these physical disciplines for helping him learn to control himself.  First he had to learn to control his own body in order to comply and not have time added on.  He was always a kid who seemed to be careening through the world with no great awareness of what he was doing, so this was important to him.  He says it also taught him to control his emotions.  My kids have always been highly dramatic in their emotional outbursts (no idea where they’d get that from!  lol).  But while sitting on the wall, he started to realize how pointless all the yelling and wailing was, how it just made him feel worse and didn’t win him any points with us either.  He said that up until then, he was always so caught up in his outbursts that he never really thought to try and stop himself.  I would still love to be able to say that I had raised my kids without deliberately inflicting suffering on them, but this was a kid who needed the lesson of self-control more than almost any kid I’ve ever known, so I’m glad he learned it at all.

    Thankfully, my girls so far are soooo much easier than my boys were.  Which unfortunately makes me even more paranoid sometimes: what if I did something wrong that made my boys so much more difficult to begin with? Did I do too much for them?  Did I pay too much attention to them?  Am I now rationalizing to justify for my inability to spend as much time following my 1 year old around as I did with my boys?  I am all powerful queen of the universe, after all.  Everything must somehow have its source in me – right?  And really, that mindset right there is the real recipe for a mom looking to drive herself crazy!  I probably ought to stop!

  • angry_parent1

    Question for Parents: “Are you angry?”

    Here’s a question for you parents: your kid does something boneheaded.  It wasn’t necessarily intentional, but it was entirely preventable.  You discuss with him what went wrong and what needs to be done about it.  At the end of the conversation the kid asks, “are you angry with me?”  What’s your answer?

    Is there a place in parenting for holding anger over our kid’s head?  If your kid doesn’t have to deal with anger when he screws up (although the issue is always addressed), will he not take you seriously?  Any opinions?