A comment on ZenHabits recent "Effortless Parenting"
http://zenhabits.net/rents/
1)Teaching your kids to brush their teeth and dress themselves is not teaching them to self sufficient, it is teaching them basic skills. Perhaps teaching them to do their own laundry is a "self sufficient" skill, but I see it more as giving them a chore to do, or a way to earn an 'allowance'. Truly, its keeping them out of your hair and giving yourself one less thing to do.
2)If you are teaching your older kids to help with the younger ones, then you are yelling loud and clear that YOU ARE NOT PARENTING ALL YOUR CHILDREN. You are, again, shucking your parenting duties onto others, here you are making your other kids do it.
3)Oh, you home school? I'm not surprised, but moving on. "Our kids don’t learn facts or even skills". That is fantastic, I'm sure your kids will never need to know a single fact or would benefit from having a single skill (other than taking care of children) when they enter the workforce or decide to go to college, good job. Why bother teaching them to read? They should just figure out how to solve that problem on their own.
4) Be passionate you say? Hm, sure, passion is all very well, but why not teach them to persevere rather than be passionate. Passion can fade, a difficult situation cannot be overcome with passion, but by buckling down and focusing, by practicing. I think it is far more important to be honest with children that they will face hard and difficult tasks in life, and the way to overcome them is to practice, and not give up. All things fit here, for toddlers it is learning how to correctly pronounce "hippopotamus and consequence", then how to ride a bike, to draw their letters and figure out the difference between lower case "b" and "p", learning an instrument and calculus. I don't think humans have a problem with passion.
5) Playing with your kids is not a tip for "effortless parenting", its just plain parenting. It is sad that so many parents have to be reminded that a healthy child is a happy child. I do wish more parents would include themselves in being active, I do not understand why so many think their health is not important or a priority.
6) Sure, I agree, don't over schedule. I too, know parents who wear their crazy busy schedule as a badge.
7) Dote? I guess it depends on the age of the child, right? Leave them alone sometimes and do something for yourself, you are speaking about children 4 or 5, in a safe environment right? I have a 7 month old and a 29 month old, I do not 'leave her alone'. Do I let her explore, sure. Do I let her see how high she can climb at the playground, sure. Do I leave her alone, no. Dote, do mean show them affection and teach them why some things are not safe? We frequently go for walks in the woods, if I were to leave my daughter alone, she would eat every wild fungus she came across. We observe them, talk about the different kids of fungus, how they help decompose the trees and other matter, but we do not let her 'figure out" that they can potentially hurt her.
8) Dance, sure. Go dance. Dancing is fun, especially with kids.
9) Read, yes read. Read often, visit the library, go to local book stores, make book stores as fun and as frequent as the playground. Save buying books for special occasions, and visit the library often.
10) Children are naturally inquisitive. I don't think you have to teach them this, what parents have to do is remember to allow children to be so. Instead of always telling your kids to be quite, or "later", have whole conversations with them about new and interesting things. Where do butterflies go at night? Enjoy these conversations with your kids.
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