God, I recognise myself in this. It is an article about children’s books but more particularly what such books say about the way children are parented these days. There is a bit huffing and puffing in this piece, but they might have a point.
So what should you do when a child throws a tantrum? Many parents, determined not to be cruel or counterproductive, latch on to pre-approved language from books. Walk through a Manhattan playground and you’ll hear parents responding to their dirt-throwing, swing-stealing offspring with a studied flatness. A toddler whirling into a rage is quietly instructed, “Use your words.” A preschooler who clocks his classmate is offered the vaguely Zen incantation “Hands are not for hitting.” A kid demanding a Popsicle is given a bland demurral: “I’m sorry, but I don’t respond to whining.” (The preferred vocal inflection is that of a customer-service representative informing an irate caller that the warranty has, indeed, expired.) The brusque imperative “Say ‘please’!” has been supplanted by the mildest of queries: “Is there a nicer way to say that?” The efficacy of this clinical approach has not been confirmed by science, but it certainly feels scientific, in part because the parents conduct themselves as if their child were the subject of a peer-reviewed experiment.
i didnt get the whiff of panic, i thought it as an orderly peice. I actually took from it not that kids were delinquent but that society has lost some of its skills to parent in the face of ‘expert’ opinion as represented by the position of the parents in the books presented. The ‘democratic’ approach to childrearing has consequences and not all are good. Sometimes the answer might be ‘just because’ coz your bloody tired. Kids have a very sophisticated way of keeping you chasing your tail. I love harriet for all these reasons!
There’s a bit of the “a little from column A and a little from column B” in this for mine.
While I can empathise with the surge of infuriation when a mother calmly says “Please don’t do that” 326 times when a kid is continuing to belt another kid, I can also attest to the futility of escalating a screeching match with a pre-schooler. (There’s been altogether too much of that on my part recently.)
I have had a slight reduction in my stress levels recently, and have seen an instant improvement in household calm as a result of my ability to keep my voice low and steady when dealing with an outburst compared with the bad case of joining in that I’ve had over the last month or so. And yeah, I tend to recite learned platitudes, because that’s often all I can manage whilst resisting the urge to screech like a banshee.
Oh Ariane, absolutely, absolutely.
With so much “advice” out there, it is not hard to believe that parents feel they are under a microscope every time they interact with their children in public. They feel like they have to “perform” in front of others to make sure they will pass as good parents. A child’s bad behavior in public reflects on them; but more importantly how they handle it is judged through the lens of conventional parenting wisdom by others!
The system is self-reinforcing, because very soon parents start judging other parents through the same lens. The cycle of fear and guilt continues.
I think it is fine to read books for ideas. But before we implement them, we need to first internalize them against our own values. If we believe in “tough love”, then ignoring bad behavior, or treating it calmly in public will not make us happy as parents. Now I am not talking about spanking or other abusive treatment, but being firm and decisive.
There is no magic rule. Parenting is not about others but about yourself and your child. I don’t judge other parents, therefore I don’t feel the pressure of being judged by them as I deal with my 3 year old twins.
I can keep it all calm for a while, ignoring the kid til he says please rather than “I want…” and quietly suggesting alternative courses of action and generally speaking it works, but on the 7000th demand for the day I reserve the right to evoke a thousand old school Irish parents and yell “Oh for the love of God be quiet!” (and yeah, I sound like my Dad). Which as Zoe would say, is preparing the kids not to be startled when people yell or behave otherwise irrationally later in life.
I think the desire to be calm in the face of pre-schooler misbehavior might be reinforced by the parenting literature, but I also think it’s about the sea-change in how parents view themselves in relation to their children: as future peers. If you think of your relationship with your children as a variation on your other social relations, your ideal is good communication rather than control. I don’t think this is a product of reading clinical research; I think it’s a product of an increased belief in children’s equality.
I love Emily.
I love Emily too.
And I love you too!