I recently read a very interesting article by a British nanny that detailed five different reasons American parents struggle with parenting issues. I will be taking each of her five reasons and delving into them more deeply from an American point of view. The first of those reasons was that American parents are actually afraid of their children. Is this really true and if it is, why?
Are Americans really afraid of their own children?
If you were to ask American parents this question point blank, almost all would vehemently deny it. However, just let that precious little one begin to throw a hissy fit in a public place, and the fear nearly exudes from that parent. The British nanny accused American parents of not being the adult in the situation, but as an American I understand that the cause of that fear goes so much deeper than just an unwillingness to be the adult even though that is part of the problem. In this article I am going to delve into the rest of the story.
Problem One: Perfect Childhood Syndrome
The notion that childhood should be carefree and magical permeates every nook and cranny of American society. This philosophy is so engrained in our national psyche that most of us do not even realize how much we have been affected by it. "It's all about the children." How many times have you heard these words from parents, marketers, early childhood experts, etc.? We scrimp and sacrifice to give our children everything we believe they deserve especially if we had to do without these things as children. The problem, however, is that giving children everything usually turns them into spoiled brats. The "doing without" from our own childhood did more good for us than we will probably ever realize. Even though childhood should have moments that are carefree and magical, when an entire childhood is carefree and magical children do not grow up to be functioning adults. They tend to be overgrown children with no idea how to take care of themselves. The hard lessons of life are just as necessary as the carefree and magical moments. We, as American parents, have tried with all our might to save our children from the hard lessons of life and have ended up doing so much more harm than those hard lessons ever would have done. It is so much easier for a two year old to learn that he/she cannot have everything he/she wants than it is for a twenty year old to all at once have to learn that lesson. However, we are so focused on making sure the two year is happy all the time that we let the lessons necessary for that stage of development slip away only to have to be learned at a different stage of development where is will be exponentially harder for the child to learn. Our predecessors were not ignorant people with no concept of how to raise children, but looking at our current track record, the same might not be said of us.
Problem Two: Self-Esteem
A great deal of emphasis has been placed on the importance of self-esteem in the last two or three decades. This grew out of an era where too much emphasis was placed on putting oneself down. However, we hit the ditch on the other side of the road very quickly with this concept because we divorced it from the more important concept - self-acceptance. Whereas the previous era put way too much emphasis on a person's weaknesses, we now put way too much emphasis on feeling good about ourselves. We now have children especially teenagers and young adults that feel good about themselves apart from any accomplishments or strengths. If you do not see the problem with that scenario, you have swallowed the self-esteem pill hook, line, and sinker. A person that does nothing or accomplishes nothing, should not really feel good about themselves. That is being lazy. Self-esteem without self-acceptance produces people that can be mean as snakes making life completely miserable for everyone around them and still feel good in their own skin. What is self-acceptance and how does it differ from self-esteem? Self-acceptance takes into account a person's strengths and weaknesses. It is a realistic view of who you are as a person. Without self-acceptance a person cannot change or strengthen their weak areas because one must know their weaknesses in order to work on them. Self-esteem when coupled with self-acceptance comes from accomplishment and change. You feel good about yourself because you have become a better, stronger person through adversity and hard work. Self-esteem should never be divorced from hard work. Self-esteem without self-acceptance is only a shallow image of the real thing. True self-esteem comes from knowing who you are and what you have accomplished. Therefore, do not be afraid to help children see their weak areas. It does not destroy real self-esteem to help a child have a realistic view of who they are as a person. However, do not just point out weaknesses without showing them how to fix it. Simply pointing out weaknesses was the problem of the previous era. When you show children the proper way to behave and work, you build them up as people. It is okay to tell them "no, that is not the way to behave or do that," but it must be coupled with modeling the correct way.
Problem Three: To Stress or Not To Stress
Several years ago toxic stress became one of the hot button topics of the day. Media and specialists began to cry against the dangers of toxic stress on children. I even remember seeing brain scans of children that had endured chronic toxic stress. What these people failed to point out was the difference between normal stress and toxic stress. The result was a hysteria about stressing children in the least. Letting children "cry it out" became akin to child abuse because it might damage the brain. Making children endure the stress of embarrassment or failure was thought to be unimaginable. Thus, was born the "everybody gets a trophy" culture. Fortunately, now psychologists have seen the error of their ways and are trying to make people understand that some stress in necessary for normal development. However, undoing a hysteria in America takes more than these psychologists ever imagined. This particular hysteria has found its way into childcare regulations and the accepted practices of educators. In some states it is against regulations to let a child cry for longer than 5 minutes, and it has long been the practice of many schools to avoid any activity that has "winners and losers." I will give today's psychologists an "A" for effort. I have seen many reports on the national media about the need for some stress for proper child development and the detrimental effects of the "everybody gets a trophy" mentality. However, they are screaming at a fast moving train that left the station years ago. The damage is done, and it will take years and years to undo all the many facets of where that philosophy embedded itself. Parents will not feel comfortable allowing their child normal stress especially in a public place until that philosophy has been rooted out at its core.
Problem Four: Parent Competition
I recently saw a commercial where all the different camps of parenting were about to duke it out on the playground. Even though the commercial ended on a positive note, the culture it portrayed is very real in America. Many different camps exist that believe with all of their being that their way of raising children is the "best" way. I actually blame this one on the "best practice" mentality so prevalent among early childhood theorists and educational circles. What no one ever explains when dealing with "best practice" whether it be in early childhood circles or parenting circles is that "best practice" wholly depends on the worldview of the people involved. A person's worldview determines his/her priorities and priorities determine what is or is not best practice. Among the varying worldviews in existence today the priorities of those worldviews can be complete opposites of one another. Therefore, what is best practice for one group is at the bottom of the barrel for another group. Many experts would have you believe that only one best practice exists for every aspect of a child's care, but that really could not be further from the truth. What is considered "best practice" by most early childhood experts only reflects a liberal Western worldview. Any other worldview would have a different standard for "best practice." Herein lies the rub for American parents. They have all been sold the idea that their worldview and way of doing things is "best practice," and anyone that does not follow their way does not have all the right information. Our entire culture needs to take a deep breath and realize that different people have different priorities and those different priorities determine "best practice" in their world. We really need to cut each other some slack. We are all only fallible human beings and do the best we can most of the time. There is not one "best practice" for raising children. Just determine what your priorities are and strive to do your best to follow your own standards. Leave everyone else alone.
Problem Five: Liberal Definition of Child Abuse
This brings me to my last point. With the "best practice" culture has also come the liberalizing of the definition of child abuse. Now true child abuse is a horrible, despicable crime, but when we start having people being labeled child abusers for letting their child "cry it out" or having the least little scrape, bruise, or mark on them, we have a problem. Any law professional worth anything will tell you the best way to minimize the effects of a law is to define it too liberally. The more all-encompassing you try to make a law or regulation the more difficult you make it to enforce. This is simple, basic common sense. I come at this one as a former homeschooling mom, and I will tell you that I lived in horror of the idea of having someone turn us into the Department of Human Services just because they disliked the idea of homeschooling. A great deal of the time the Department of Human Services acts first and asks questions later, and you are very often guilty until proven innocent. Most people understand that or have witnessed that firsthand. Therefore, mothers of rowdy boys live with the same constant fear that someone will be petty enough to turn them in for child abuse simply because their boys always have bruises. As a childcare provider, I have actually had that conversation with a mom because my state makes me a mandatory reporter of child abuse. I told her that my definition of child abuse is not even remotely that liberal, and that as a mother of a boy I understand about little boys and bruises. As a former homeschooling mom I would never turn someone in unless I was sure something horrible was happening. I have heard and witnessed far too many horror stories of children being taken away from good parents for no other reason than other people's pettiness. On the other hand, I have seen situations where the children needed to be taken but were kept in the situation because the parents worked the system. In today's society one cannot rule out the possibility that someone might "report" them simply because they do not agree with their parenting style. This makes for a very toxic situation, and probably the biggest reason we Americans seem to fear our children. We are not really afraid of the child as much as we are afraid of what someone will do to us if we actually try to discipline our child in public.
Conclusion
To the British nanny I would say that we are really scared of each other and the intolerance that exists when it comes to parenting practices. Therefore, we have allowed ourselves to fall hook, line, and sinker for pop parenting styles that are nowhere near good for anyone in the long run. I hope we will eventually learn our lessons and return to some basic common sense, but in the mean time we are doing the best we can in a culture and environment that fights us every step of the way.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! https://linktr.ee/natawade
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