Thursday, May 7, 2009

Parenting Peeves

Now, I'm not going to profess to know everything but I do believe somethings should just be common sense.

Now, I do very adamantly believe that children learn all the basics about life in the first few years of life, at least the core basics, no they're not going to know quantum physics but respect, love, dislike, manners, responsibility, tolerance, and the like...core basics, nothing complex, or advanced, just the core principles.

I cannot stand when a parent thinks their child has to have everything they want all of the time. It's great that you can afford it, but honestly you're not doing your child any favors, I see it as a disservice to your child. They learn that anything they want they can have it, no work required. Makes for a sad life when they grow up and realize that it just doesn't happen like that in the real world, and heaven forbid something happen that suddenly these wants are no longer met.

A popular private preschool teaches that it's "wrong" to correct a child when they've made a mistake. Seriously, if a child is not corrected when they've done wrong they go through their young lives thinking they're doing everything right, suddenly someone is going to correct them and then it's the end of the world for them, they start to doubt all that they've been taught or allowed to believe is right as being wrong, or they have such attitude that they are quite grandiose and have no humility. Their thought is that you teach a child what is correct, if they get it wrong, it's up to them to figure it out. And it's a wonder why the crime rate age groups just get younger and younger.

Many folks feel that correcting a young child -- toddler age -- is a form of abuse and is going to damage their self-esteem. For a young child its simply a matter of 1)Keeping them away from temptation, if this means your child enjoys playing with your great grandmother's 200 year old fine china and breaks a piece and you expect your child to of just left this stuff alone because you told them "NO" you're an idiot!

2)If you can't remove the temptation, you remove them from the temptation, and then engage them into something else more interesting than whatever they were trying to do. Just simply moving them away is not going to do the trick, especially as they get older.

3)TELL them what is wrong! You can't just move a child from a situation or tell them know, and expect that they know what the reason is. Something simple as "Don't touch, it'll hurt" could do the trick, but for a child that doesn't know that hurt is something bad, they're going to be tempted to try again until they find out...that's how they LEARN. No one knows what hot is until they experience it. Help them learn, hold their hand, close enough for them to feel the heat, and explain again "Ouch, Hurt"...simple one word phrases go a LONG way. Your child likes to stand in a chair, when telling them to "sit down, not stand" you must pick them up and set them down so that they understand that sitting is acceptable, standing is not.

No comments:

Post a Comment