Parenting Stuff

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I like to dabble in the great parenting debate. You might have heard some of the synopsis of the different child-rearing techniques:
- I'm OK, your OK
- spare the rod, spoil the child
- helicopter parents
- aggro-mom
- let's be best friends

In the last year or so I've read a couple of books on parenting written by psychologists who have active practices counselling children, adolescents and their parents. I can't remember most of what I read (my brain is mush these days). But there was one nugget that caught my attention.

What sparked my curiosity is that these psychologists (generally liberal in outlook), through observation in their practices and through scientific studies, each concluded (much to their consternation and surprise) that children who grow up in homes with strict, even authoritarian parents become happier adults.

They attribute this outcome to the principle that children must have boundaries to feel safe. When children understand that they belong in a hierarchy (and that they are not at the top or center of it!) they feel safe. I guess feeling safe is a condition for children to experience the world in a realistic way. Their relationship with reality is truer than kids who are always catered to, protected and praised. They are not so prone to delusion and disappointment.

I think that many parents of my generation need to hear this, so let me repeat.

Studies in child psychology have shown that children in strict, hierarchical homes grow up to be happier adults.

I'm not advocating for harsh punishments, cruelty or any of that garbage. Strict limits and teaching children their place in the family must be done with tons of love, patience and compassion. But I am pleased, because I always thought the "children are innocent - we just need to let them find their own way" parenting style was stupid. Children are innocent, but they are also supremely self-centered and needy. If no limits are placed on their desires and needs as little ones, they won't learn the life lesson that "You don't always get what you want". They'll grow up thinking they are the center of the universe, that anything less than "my way" is wrong, disappointing or failure. They can never mature into an understanding of their proper, interconnected and interrelated role in the universe.

I used to worry that I was "squashing his spirit" when I enforced limits on little ARG. I used to silently criticize friends and family that were more strict with their kids. But now I think that I was working from a wrong assumption: that kids must always be allowed to express themselves, and have input on all decisions affecting them in order to blossom.

Hope I'm not sounding preachy. It's something I've though a lot about, so I have strong feelings. And please, don't think I'm holding myself up as the standard of perfection here. Far, far from it! I'm still waiting for the magic pill, or parenting bible that will tell me how to do this.

But you know what? It's no fun being around a kid who thinks she is the bees knees. Who thinks and behaves as if she is equal to all the adults around. But worse than no fun, it's a disservice to the kid - and that's sad.