The fine line between free choice and guided decision-making
As a parent we all "know" that we won't make the same mistakes that our parents made. We will do things differently and we will do better and get it right.
Right?
I thought so too but little did I know that making the same mistakes as parents was never going to be a problem, simply because the issues that trip me up are not issues they came up against.
Yes, the fundamentals of parenting are the same: have children, show them love and provide for them. Im afraid this is where similarities between parenting during these times and parenting during previous (albeit recent) generations ends.
The speed at which this change has happened was brought home to me when my 19 year old son commented that his 13 year old sister is "from another world". If he feels that, is it any wonder that I at times feel ill-equipped to understand and deal with the issues that challenge my parenting skills on a daily basis?
My parents didn't have to worry about whether I was being stalked or groomed. It never occurred to them that there was any other kind of sexuality other that heterosexual or homosexual or genders beyond male and female. They were confident that I could be depended on to say please and thank you, and to greet people I met or knew.
They didn't need to continuously wonder if they were doing enough ( even though they probably did ) never mind whether I could or couldn’t legally divorce them! They did the best they could, they did what everyone was doing and for them that was good enough.
I am not saying they did a better job than what we are doing —not at all. But I do believe that the things they grappled with as parents were less complex and complicated. Neither am I saying they had it easy — just that it was simpler.
They didn't agonise over whether making me go to school (unless I had a raging fever) was about anything other than not being well. I wasn't being bullied and if I was I probably would have sucked it up and dealt with it on my own. As I said, not necessarily better... But they had simple rules and there were boundaries: If you are sick you stay home. If not you go to school.
My children still laugh at the primary school certificates that I received for Full Attendance — 5 years out of 7 at that! It is absurd and as foreign to them as the fact that I went to a library to do school projects and did them with minimal adult help.
Yes, this meant I never did very well at school — I was a huge underachiever and probably would have benefitted from some physio and OT. In fact, it took me until university to actually start doing well and not failing or scraping through like during of my high school years.
But (and here’s the thing) my parents were never under pressure to fix me. They thankfully let me be, trusting that I would find my way when I was finally doing something I loved. And I did.
Sadly, these days that level of patience is unheard of. We feel a burning need to need to fix our children, to make them better. There is so much competition that unless they excel we fear for their futures. Our patience has waned and thanks to the immediacy of food (drive though), internet (who remembers dial up?), services (uber) and social engagement (Zoom) in their lives, they have very little concrete understanding of what patience actually means and looks like.
This is not a comment on the merits of the many advancements in our world, it is merely a reflection on the fact that nothing is all good or by the same token all bad.
So how do we keep the good and be conscious of the not so good? Keep what works and better what doesn't?
We do this by applying the 12 step slogans of Back to Basics and Keep it Simple. We start by asking “What are the values that are basic for us?” For me manners are basic (more like non-negotiable) but whether my child chooses her own clothes (however mismatched) is something I am happy to hand over to her. Honesty is a basic I am not prepared to compromise on. When my children say "at least I was honest" my standard reply is “honesty is not an achievement, it's expected.”
So what is the fine line? How do we draw the line between choosing while still doing our job as parents and guiding our children to make good choices? Choices that best set them up to be responsible, accountable members of their many environments and communities.
The foremost example in my mind is separating time at school for parents and children. When children say they want to stay/go home and don't want to go to school, parents have 2 choices.
They can allow their children to come/stay home with them—which is understandable from the point of view that they are hearing their children. An excellent parenting skill but (and yes there is a but) you are hearing what your children wants, not their needs. While wants have value, children need to understand that wants cannot always drive their behaviors. Stay with me here.
A child who wants the swing, may think pushing another child off is okay because they want it. A child who wants to carry on playing when you tell them to clean up needs to know that there are rules and times for particular activities. So playtime is now finished because it is bath time - whether they want to bath or not - and cleaning up after yourself is not negotiable however little you want to. Make sense?
The second choice parents have is to acknowledge what their child wants and are saying—but at the same time saying goodbye with confidence and faith in their ability to settle, be happy and enjoy their day at school. Yes, it is hard to leave a crying child but please believe me it is much harder down the line to deal with a child who has never had to do something they didn't want to do. Or get a child to believe in themselves when they have not had enough opportunity to rely on their own resources and experience their success.
This is called the longer shorter way. Longer in the moment (leaving a crying child) but most certainly shorter in the long run when it has become a skill (self-regulating their emotions) they have mastered.
As adults we also tend to make choices based on what we want - I want to buy something I can't afford - but we mostly know that this has long standing consequences. That is what we are trying to teach our children: That regardless of what choices they make they are responsible for the consequences. We are teaching them that sometimes we choose things because they are the better choice. They are not the nicer, easier, more appealing choice but they are the choice that will serve us best down the line. Choosing to leave a toy at home instead of taking it to school means that while you want to show your friends and can't, your toy will not be lost or broken and will be at home after school to use.
Remember we spoke about patience? You just gave a lesson in that too - high five!
This topic is close to my heart, not only because I see parents struggling to separate or say no on a daily basis. Not because I got it right and want to tell you how to parent. It is close to my heart because I have often made parenting choices based on what I wanted in a moment of dealing with a toddler and I am now seeing how that plays out when that same toddler is a teen or young adult.
The line is fine, parenting is hard, and we are not always equipped but the same has remained true through generations of parenting: what values do you believe in and which battles are you going to fight? Simple, not easy but simple.
“Too many parents make life hard for their children by trying, too zealously, to make it easy for them”