I stumbled across an interesting blog post a few days ago, and it’s been on my mind ever since. So, first, please check out the post here, and then you’ll be able to follow along with my thoughts (don’t worry - it’ll open in a new window).
So, to sum up what Jesse was saying, essentially, we are being too soft on our kids, and teaching them to blame others for their problems. Some of the points that Jesse makes are good ones. I always felt that the movement to use purple pens for correction instead of red was insane. I don’t think it helps kids to make them feel less stressed about red pen markings. Same goes for everyone getting a trophy in little league, or no one having to sit down during a spelling bee.
However, I think that it’s easy to go too far with this as well. I think there must be a happy medium. Jesse talks about raising their 4 month old daughter. He makes reference to her almost being able to roll over, and someday trying to walk. These are things that I can easily relate to. I thought back to our experiences with Xander rolling over. It took him a long time to get this figured out. We could have left him screaming on his stomach for longer I’m sure. On the other hand, when he was flipping out, he wasn’t being productive. It wasn’t like he was trying to move himself, he was just crying, red-faced and miserable, so we didn’t leave him like that for lengthy periods of time. The same when Xander learned to walk. We held his hand when he asked, and let him attempt on his own when he didn’t.
Now, Xander is very clear with us when he wants to do things on his own. Two examples that come to mind immediately are the stairs, and food. Xander rarely wants help going up or down the stairs these days. We still play spotter when he’s walking down, but we let him go on his own for the most part. Xander also will refuse to eat if he can’t hold his own utensil. He doesn’t want to be spoon fed, and he doesn’t want help getting his food from the plate to his mouth. Regardless of how much he spills, he wants to do it on his own, and we let him as much as possible.
According to Jesse’s theory, Zach and I are raising a member of the “Y-Me?” generation. We help him when he asks for it, and sometimes when he doesn’t. On the other hand, we have an extremely self confident child. He adapts easily to change, isn’t afraid to try things on his own, and is confident that if he goes running around on the playground, Mom or Dad will be around somewhere to catch him if he slips.
We haven’t reached an age where we can start teaching things like fiscal responsibility, or familial responsibility in terms of chores, etc. Before I was a parent, I probably would have had some strong opinions about what we would and wouldn’t do in terms of these decisions. Now, I’m taking a “wait and see” attitude. I can’t tell you that we will definitely require Xander to do chores around the house or that we’ll give him an allowance or not. I just don’t know right now. I do know that when we need to make the decisions, we’ll make them based on what is best for Xander - what will help him to learn and develop in a manner that we are comfortable with.
I don’t think that anyone wants a child to grow up blaming the rest of the world for his or her difficulties, but I also don’t think that raising a 2 year old to understand that life is hard and you’re just going to have to get used to it is the only way to get there. I read through some of the comments on Jesse’s site, and everyone seemed to think that his ideas were right on the money, and this was definitely the way to go. It makes me wonder how many of those commenters actually have kids… Anyway, it was an interesting article and definitely thought provoking.
