Wow, ladies! What great ideas, feedback, suggestions, etc.
Meant to be much less of a lecture or tooting of my own horn, my initial post was intended as a jumping off point, which I think you all caught onto nicely. A couple of the incidents I had recently witnessed to pique my curiosity about this topic were:
1)forcing a nine month old child out of two naps a day down to one per day so that the mother could have more time in her own schedule to run errands, etc.
2) demanding an extremely detailed level of cleaning up by parents of five, and 2-year-old children to ease their own discomfort with a messy house much more so than to teach the lesson of being helpful contributors to the cleanliness of the family household, etc. (For example, when the five-year-old boy put his boxed up puzzle away in the appropriate toy bin, he was scolded for placing the box upside down, rather than right side up.)
3) Sending children to bed early so mom and dad can relax in the evening, not because the children were tired, cranky or had a busy day ahead of them.
The truth of the matter is, as Alison so aptly put it, we all have times when parenting for convenience is what needs to be done. We MUST pick our battles for everyone's well being, and sometimes the convenience factor falls into that category. But, just as we learn to pick which battles are worth the effort, and which simply are not, I imagine we must also choose when the convenience factor translates into "teaching our children for the good of the whole" vs. "training our children for our sole benefit." When is it appropriate to bow to the route of least resistance (convenience) and when must we make the extra effort and make parental choices that, while less convenient for ourselves, are more beneficial for our children?
An example of this last statement might be a scenario during which we discover our child has, in some way, "wronged" another child. We could take the more convenient route and simply talk with our child, demand he apologize to the other child in short order, etc. Or perhaps we could choose to go the extra mile and accompany our child during the apology, or proactively call the other child's parent, explain the situation, and assure him/her that our child will take appropriate actions the next day to rectify the situation.
As I re-read the comments on this post, and reflect on my own parenting journey, I realize this is a tremendously grey-area topic. But I know, as a mom and a childbirth/parenting educator, I am always looking for ways to re-evaluate how I do things...and places and scenarios during which I can do better.
Thanks for your comments, ladies! I look forward to reading more!
Kimmelin Hull
author of: A Dozen Invisible Pieces and Other Confessions of Motherhood
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Wow, ladies! What great ideas, feedback, suggestions, etc.
Meant to be much less of a lecture or tooting of my own horn, my initial post was intended as a jumping off point, which I think you all caught onto nicely. A couple of the incidents I had recently witnessed to pique my curiosity about this topic were:
1)forcing a nine month old child out of two naps a day down to one per day so that the mother could have more time in her own schedule to run errands, etc.
2) demanding an extremely detailed level of cleaning up by parents of five, and 2-year-old children to ease their own discomfort with a messy house much more so than to teach the lesson of being helpful contributors to the cleanliness of the family household, etc. (For example, when the five-year-old boy put his boxed up puzzle away in the appropriate toy bin, he was scolded for placing the box upside down, rather than right side up.)
3) Sending children to bed early so mom and dad can relax in the evening, not because the children were tired, cranky or had a busy day ahead of them.
The truth of the matter is, as Alison so aptly put it, we all have times when parenting for convenience is what needs to be done. We MUST pick our battles for everyone's well being, and sometimes the convenience factor falls into that category. But, just as we learn to pick which battles are worth the effort, and which simply are not, I imagine we must also choose when the convenience factor translates into "teaching our children for the good of the whole" vs. "training our children for our sole benefit." When is it appropriate to bow to the route of least resistance (convenience) and when must we make the extra effort and make parental choices that, while less convenient for ourselves, are more beneficial for our children?
An example of this last statement might be a scenario during which we discover our child has, in some way, "wronged" another child. We could take the more convenient route and simply talk with our child, demand he apologize to the other child in short order, etc. Or perhaps we could choose to go the extra mile and accompany our child during the apology, or proactively call the other child's parent, explain the situation, and assure him/her that our child will take appropriate actions the next day to rectify the situation.
As I re-read the comments on this post, and reflect on my own parenting journey, I realize this is a tremendously grey-area topic. But I know, as a mom and a childbirth/parenting educator, I am always looking for ways to re-evaluate how I do things...and places and scenarios during which I can do better.
Thanks for your comments, ladies! I look forward to reading more!
Kimmelin Hull
July 7, 2008 - 9:48pmauthor of: A Dozen Invisible Pieces and Other Confessions of Motherhood
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