Read this today. After having a moment with G on his bike.
He doesn't like to ride his bike up hills. He quits when it gets hard to pedal and he gets off his bike and he walks it up. At the drive way this morning, I said nu-uh. Get your bottom on that bike and pedal up that driveway.
But mom, I can't.
No two words in the english language set me off more than "I can't."
Yes you can son! PEDAL! Stand up and pedal! You can do this! Don't you dare quit! Try again!
But mom, I can't!
You can too, don't you say that to me again. Back to the bottom. You get up this hill.
So - realizing I wasn't letting him off the hook - he took his bike down to the bottom, he rode it up the neighbors less inclined driveway, and he pedaled and pedaled and pedaled up our driveway.
Look! You did it! I knew you could! You can do anything! You just have to try.
When I got inside I read the article linked above. And I shook my head. Had I broken my child's spirit by making him keep going? By not letting him give up - like he wanted to - was I teaching him a lesson that he had to earn my love? Is that what I had done?
OR ...
Had I shown him that if we try hard, if we persevere through the uphill climbs in life (oooooh, metaphor!), we can do hard things? Had I shown him that if you give up, sure it's easier, but he wouldn't have had the pride of knowing he had ridden up the hill by himself. He wouldn't have gotten the big smile; the yes I did it! smile.
In the article it talks about how saying "I don't want to hear your crying" is bad. Um, I say that all the time. Crying can be replaced with yelling, or whining, or fighting. There's a line in the article that says "all kids learn to ride their bikes, it's time you did too." I've said that too. Is that bad?
In my limited experience, children will only do what they are pushed to do. If he makes a mess and I clean it up for him, saying "it's okay, we all make mistakes" he will sit there and let me clean it up, smiling nicely and saying "okay mommy." It's easier to be the good parent. It's easier to be the "it's okay" parent. Truly, it is.
But that doesn't raise responsible adults.
If I say "It's okay, we all make mistakes, now clean it up or I'm taking away a toy / or you're going to timeout." Guess what gets cleaned up? And maybe doesn't get spilled again. We have a new dilemma of broken toys and "can we get a new one?" Nope. You need to learn to take care of your things.
Am I breaking his spirit? Am I teaching him he has to earn my love?
NO. I'm discipling my child.
He knows I love him. He does. He knows that he is fed, housed and clothed. He knows that if he needs me, if he yells for me, I am always there. He knows that I pick him up from school and drop him off every day. He knows I show up to every. stupid. event. the school ever has. Because I know it is important to show up. He knows those things so deep and so down in his heart that he takes me for granted.
How do I know this? Because he's a happy kid. Because he is a rambunctious push the limit kid. His brother too. We fight. We have bad days. And at the end of those bad days, sometimes in tears I say to them (and sometimes they say to me) it's okay, tomorrow will be a better day. I love you.
I hate articles like these because it just assumes that we all wake up that day and think ... yes, today I will yell at my kids and lose my patience and feel like a shit parent. Nobody wakes up like that. It's not intentional. We lose our cool we get frustrated. We are human. Just like our beloved offspring.
So instead of sanctimommy-ing all over my coffee I really wish folks would just stop writing crap like this. It doesn't help. It just makes those of us that are really, really trying hard to raise independent, capable, thinking adults feel like we're doing it all wrong.
I'm never going to be okay with G or D or J giving up. Never. I'm going to harp on them to keep trying, because I know they can do it. Giving up is easy, staying on them and making them try again and again and watching them work hard is harder. Seriously it's harder to discipline. It's easy not to.
Parents today want to be beloved by their children. They want to be happy and adored and have good moments all the time. That's not what parenting is. I mean some species eat their young. I totally get that; baby bear probably left another flipping lego on the floor. Mama Bear just lost her mind there for a second.
I kid. I totally kid.
Don't read that article by the way. Blech.
Anyway my point is, sanctimommy, that I'm trying to raise these kids to go out and tackle the world. Whether they like me or not is a happy byproduct (I hope). I really do worry that they hate me. I do. But I can't let them fight or throw cheerios at each other or play in the bathroom at nap time or use the fire truck as a step stool or say bad things or watch bad things or do bad things ... and I most definitely can't let them quit at hard things. Whether that's losing weight, learning to swim, riding a bike, or practicing their piano.
Do you know one of my top ten regrets in life? That I didn't stay with piano lessons. That I never practiced. I was ten. Of course I wanted to quit it was easier. It would have been hard and demanding and frustrating to keep trying. It was easier to quit. So I quit.
I wish I had never quit.
Now I don't blame my mother. She was doing what she thought was right and I had a pretty hard childhood in some respects and I think she was trying to make one part of it easier. But had I kept practicing, had I kept with it ... I would have a great skill. And something to be really proud of.
My world is a bit caught up with Kindergarten, and there are a lot of folks out there who think we expect too much of our 5yos. I sat in our kinder warm up meeting or whatever cutesy thing they called it and I listened and I thought ... this isn't expecting too much, this is knowing that our 5yo are capable of more than cutting out shapes and knowing their colors. These kids can read and these kids can use computers and program and tell stories and write. It's not expecting them to fail, it's expecting them to succeed. Our standards are high because these kids can meet them.
And that's kind of my whole schtick. I expect a lot. Because I know you can do it.
He doesn't like to ride his bike up hills. He quits when it gets hard to pedal and he gets off his bike and he walks it up. At the drive way this morning, I said nu-uh. Get your bottom on that bike and pedal up that driveway.
But mom, I can't.
No two words in the english language set me off more than "I can't."
Yes you can son! PEDAL! Stand up and pedal! You can do this! Don't you dare quit! Try again!
But mom, I can't!
You can too, don't you say that to me again. Back to the bottom. You get up this hill.
So - realizing I wasn't letting him off the hook - he took his bike down to the bottom, he rode it up the neighbors less inclined driveway, and he pedaled and pedaled and pedaled up our driveway.
Look! You did it! I knew you could! You can do anything! You just have to try.
When I got inside I read the article linked above. And I shook my head. Had I broken my child's spirit by making him keep going? By not letting him give up - like he wanted to - was I teaching him a lesson that he had to earn my love? Is that what I had done?
OR ...
Had I shown him that if we try hard, if we persevere through the uphill climbs in life (oooooh, metaphor!), we can do hard things? Had I shown him that if you give up, sure it's easier, but he wouldn't have had the pride of knowing he had ridden up the hill by himself. He wouldn't have gotten the big smile; the yes I did it! smile.
In the article it talks about how saying "I don't want to hear your crying" is bad. Um, I say that all the time. Crying can be replaced with yelling, or whining, or fighting. There's a line in the article that says "all kids learn to ride their bikes, it's time you did too." I've said that too. Is that bad?
In my limited experience, children will only do what they are pushed to do. If he makes a mess and I clean it up for him, saying "it's okay, we all make mistakes" he will sit there and let me clean it up, smiling nicely and saying "okay mommy." It's easier to be the good parent. It's easier to be the "it's okay" parent. Truly, it is.
But that doesn't raise responsible adults.
If I say "It's okay, we all make mistakes, now clean it up or I'm taking away a toy / or you're going to timeout." Guess what gets cleaned up? And maybe doesn't get spilled again. We have a new dilemma of broken toys and "can we get a new one?" Nope. You need to learn to take care of your things.
Am I breaking his spirit? Am I teaching him he has to earn my love?
NO. I'm discipling my child.
He knows I love him. He does. He knows that he is fed, housed and clothed. He knows that if he needs me, if he yells for me, I am always there. He knows that I pick him up from school and drop him off every day. He knows I show up to every. stupid. event. the school ever has. Because I know it is important to show up. He knows those things so deep and so down in his heart that he takes me for granted.
How do I know this? Because he's a happy kid. Because he is a rambunctious push the limit kid. His brother too. We fight. We have bad days. And at the end of those bad days, sometimes in tears I say to them (and sometimes they say to me) it's okay, tomorrow will be a better day. I love you.
I hate articles like these because it just assumes that we all wake up that day and think ... yes, today I will yell at my kids and lose my patience and feel like a shit parent. Nobody wakes up like that. It's not intentional. We lose our cool we get frustrated. We are human. Just like our beloved offspring.
So instead of sanctimommy-ing all over my coffee I really wish folks would just stop writing crap like this. It doesn't help. It just makes those of us that are really, really trying hard to raise independent, capable, thinking adults feel like we're doing it all wrong.
I'm never going to be okay with G or D or J giving up. Never. I'm going to harp on them to keep trying, because I know they can do it. Giving up is easy, staying on them and making them try again and again and watching them work hard is harder. Seriously it's harder to discipline. It's easy not to.
Parents today want to be beloved by their children. They want to be happy and adored and have good moments all the time. That's not what parenting is. I mean some species eat their young. I totally get that; baby bear probably left another flipping lego on the floor. Mama Bear just lost her mind there for a second.
I kid. I totally kid.
Don't read that article by the way. Blech.
Anyway my point is, sanctimommy, that I'm trying to raise these kids to go out and tackle the world. Whether they like me or not is a happy byproduct (I hope). I really do worry that they hate me. I do. But I can't let them fight or throw cheerios at each other or play in the bathroom at nap time or use the fire truck as a step stool or say bad things or watch bad things or do bad things ... and I most definitely can't let them quit at hard things. Whether that's losing weight, learning to swim, riding a bike, or practicing their piano.
Do you know one of my top ten regrets in life? That I didn't stay with piano lessons. That I never practiced. I was ten. Of course I wanted to quit it was easier. It would have been hard and demanding and frustrating to keep trying. It was easier to quit. So I quit.
I wish I had never quit.
Now I don't blame my mother. She was doing what she thought was right and I had a pretty hard childhood in some respects and I think she was trying to make one part of it easier. But had I kept practicing, had I kept with it ... I would have a great skill. And something to be really proud of.
My world is a bit caught up with Kindergarten, and there are a lot of folks out there who think we expect too much of our 5yos. I sat in our kinder warm up meeting or whatever cutesy thing they called it and I listened and I thought ... this isn't expecting too much, this is knowing that our 5yo are capable of more than cutting out shapes and knowing their colors. These kids can read and these kids can use computers and program and tell stories and write. It's not expecting them to fail, it's expecting them to succeed. Our standards are high because these kids can meet them.
And that's kind of my whole schtick. I expect a lot. Because I know you can do it.
Comments
Yes, my children are precious to me, but if I treated them like that all the time...I can't imagine the anarchy.