The debate over the Tiger Mother seems to have calmed down, at least for now. Most of the opinions have been negative, which is unsurprising as her methods are (were?) extreme by most people's standards. And certainly that is not the way that I would ever want to raise my children, no matter what the results turned out to be.
However, it has gotten me to think about parenting, both my own and those that our western society espouses. I am often sympathetic to my children's feelings and desires and try to work with them. If they don't want to go to the park, I try to find an alternate activity to do with them. If they want to play with a certain friend, I will contact that friend's mom and try to set up a play date. But, lately I have been thinking that I am catering too much to my children's desires.
A few examples:
(1) my 3 year old seems to have developed some kind of social anxiety, which peaked during the Christmas season. This isn't surprising as we were going to new places quite a bit with lots of new faces, or at least faces that we haven't seen for awhile, between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's gotten better (and once we are wherever we're going, she's fine and has a great time), but she will still push back on us when we are going places from time to time, especially church. She will insist that she doesn't want to go and start crying, but we calmly explain to her that in our family, we always go to church on Sunday. Thankfully our drive to church is not long, so even if she is crying, she stops as soon as she sees her friends!
(2) We have enrolled Ben in music (Mon), golf (Thurs) & swim (Sat) lessons. He has started fighting going to all of them, though in the first 2 at least, he has a good time and participates like a champ. Yes, 3 lessons seems like a lot for a 5 year old, but I am learning that he needs a schedule or else he gets so bored and starts tormenting his sister or acting crazy. Even though he doesn't want to go to them, we make him go.
In my childhood experience, my parents were always encouraging me to "do my best" and if my best was a B (I never got a C on a report card until college), then that was okay. They put me in many different activities and let me choose what I wanted to do, for the most part. The one significant exception was when I was in 4th - 6th grade and they signed me and my brother up for the track team. I HATED it. I would hide the forms when they would be sent home so that my parents wouldn't see it, but they always found out and I always had to go. But you know what? I am so glad that they did it and that they didn't listen to what I wanted. It was good for me. It taught me discipline, perseverance and that I had another "gear" that I could kick myself into. These have become invaluable lessons as I grew older.
A negative example from my childhood would be piano lessons. I started taking them when I was in 1st grade and I really did not like my teacher. I don't quite remember why I didn't, but she was intimidating to me and not a particularly warm person. I did not like them and did not want to continue and my parents let me stop. I now wish that they would have made me continue them -- maybe with another teacher? But I wish that I would not have been able to give up on them so easily.
It's hard to know when to push your kids. My general rule of thumb thus far is that if you commit to something, you have to see it through to the end, with the exception of things that I sign them up for without asking them (which is rare). In those situations, they have to try at least one or two classes and if they don't like it, then they don't have to go. But sometimes I wonder if I should keep pushing them to try things that they don't like or don't think they'll like? I'm curious how others handle this? Though my kids have wills of their own, I am of the opinion that a 3 and a 5 year old do not always (or often?) know what's best for them...
1 comment:
The one thing I got out of the Tiger Mother article is that kids tend to rise to higher standards (her methods are a whole other story). We push David to do things beyond his comfort zone. He's more cautious by nature and my goal with him it so help him see that he CAN go beyond his comfort zone and be ok - that he's capable of more than he believes. This approach has helped build his confidence and stamina, though it's been coupled with a lot of relational/emotional support to help him do it.
Conversely, I think pushing too hard can be detrimental in certain circumstances - and that's where knowing your child and having a strong connection to them is important, so you know when to push and when to back down.
I can remember my dad trying to make me go up the driveway in his car when I was just learning stickshift. We had a crazy driveway with concrete walls that you could hurt a car on, and I was sure I was going to hit his car and wouldn't do it. He tried to make me and I started crying and shut down in terms of feeling capable. I took piano lessons for years and was really good at it - but I did not get along well with my last teacher, and having to continue with her for 2-3 years meant that at the end I loathed piano so much that I didn't play again for years. In that circumstance I think my parents should have let me quit or found a different teacher earlier so that my love for piano wasn't ruined.
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