Parenting
Some notes on my parenting approach. I don't care what you think about this. I only offer it in case your find it helpful.
Gentle Parenting
We try to practice "gentle parenting." Gentle parenting is incredibly misunderstood, both by parents who believe it means they should let their children run roughshod over them and everyone else, and also by observers and commentators who believe it will lead to a generation of rude brats. Gentle parenting is not permissive parenting.
Gentle parenting means authoritative parenting, as opposed to "traditional" authoritarian parenting. Gentle parenting means recognizing children as people-- but people who are still developing and do not have the skills, experience, and faculties of adults.
As an illustrative example: authoritarian parenting says "you can't have ice cream because I said so." Gentle parenting says "you can't have ice cream because we have not had dinner yet, and if you have ice cream before dinner, it will make your tummy hurt." Permissive parenting is letting the child eat ice cream before dinner. When there is a resulting tantrum, authoritarian parenting punishes the tantrum. While gentle parenting seeks to understand and communicate. Is the child actually hungry? We can explain some other snacks they can have before dinner that are more appropriate, and why we need to prioritize nourishing food before treats.
The "three Cs" at the root of gentle parenting are:
- Connection
- Communication
- Consistency
Slow Parenting and "Step Back, Step Up"
I believe that in our current cultural moment, in the United States where I live, children are over-scheduled and over-parented.
Over-scheduling
In my area, it is common for kids as young as three to be scheduled in multiple structured after-school activities, such as soccer, dance classes, gymnastics, etc. While these things can be good individually, I believe there is a risk to scheduling too much structured activity, particularly for very young children. It squeezes out unstructured activity and I believe unstructured activity is important for a child's development, creativity, and mental health. Children who never get to decide how to fill their own time grow up into adults who don't know how to manage themselves.
Over-parenting
I use the term "over-parenting" to mean so closely minding children so much of the time that it crushes their development of independent skills. Over-parenting looks like children not being allowed to play outside of their parents' sight. This leads to children with no confidence or skills to independently navigate the world. Over-parenting looks like parents jumping into every playground squabble without giving kids a chance to work it out amongst themselves. This stunts kids' conflict resolution skills.
Slow Parenting
The antedote to over-scheduling and over-parenting is slow parenting. To me, the basics of slow parenting are:
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Not over-scheduling kids and instead giving them plenty of time for unstructured play.
- We stick to one day a week of structured activity, and let that activity vary from season to season based on our kid's interests.
- An age-appropriate mix of time alone, time with other kids, time with extended family, and one-on-one or two-on-one time with parents.
- "Stepping back" as a parent so that kids can "step up." Stand back when kids play and let them navigate things themselves, including conflict with other kids.
Montesorri Education
The Montesorri method of education is an educational approach that emphasizes self-direction, inter-disciplinary learning, hands-on activity, and the development of real-world skills. This is contrasted against programs with a top-down rigid standing syllabus. Our kid is in a montesorri school and we think it has been quite effective.
Reference
Wikipedia: