reflection- children
Where to start...
so I occaisionally re-read the children's books by Laura Ingalls Wilder about her childhood and youth growing up on the frontier in the 1880s. Yes it has been cheesified in the TV Little HOuse on the Prairie series, but there is a lot there.
Looking at the kids I have in aftercare, certain aspects of child-rearing and what children had to face stand out very strongly. FIrst, how much children are capable of it terms of not only ability, but it responsibility. This I know from myself and from my cousin Clara (raised alternately in a log cabin with no running water and in Costa Rica, where she helped keep goats, among other things). Children thrive with real responsibility. They look forward to the moment when they are old enough to help, or to do it all on their own, or be trusted with something important- if you frame it like that. If work is considering demeaning, somebody else's job, unimportant, and boring- not so much.
The kids at my school seem to think of too many people as servants. Yes it is a private school, but you know, the kids who on full financial aid (benefits of doing the sec work and the books) and living in the tenderloin do it too. Kids on the bus who are obviously on the poorer end do it too. It seems to me that this generation of kids in the US is being raised as pets. Care for it, feed it, give it love, but don't expect anything from them, coddle them, wince at disipline. It sounds like you're being nice, doing all the right things, driving to soccer, etc., but it cripples them. It disrespects their potential. It conditions them to expect the world on a platter for them each day. This is of course a total generalisation, and I know many exceptions, but I see it everywhere, more and more.
Responsibility is so key to raising a kid. Wilder's books are full of the work that she did (at 6, 7, 10, 16 years old) that helped her family survive. It must have been so easy to see that she was important then. To feel the benefit of helping out. It was also dead easy to see that listening to her parents was important too. I can't even count the times they would have probably died if they hadn't, and quickly. EX: you're crossing a sping-swollen river in a covered wagon. It is threatening to capsize. You want to stand up and get a look, but dad tells you to stay down and you do out of sheer reflex. Standing would very likely have flipped the wagon and drowned everyone. There are also examples in the books of neighbors and cousins, who through not listening to their parents wrecked their families- not doing their job and spoiling the year's harvest, for example. Endangering themselves to the point of near death or injury... hmmm. The responsibility for such behavior is put on the parents for spoiling the kid into even concieving of such behavior. The term "spoiled" in this case stands out. It is spoken of with a special horror in those books. That a child would go bad, be ruined, like spoiled grain. Hmmm.
I have great respect for what children can do. I also believe that they respect themselves more when they get real responsibilities. That when they learn how hard it is to do a thing, that they are so much less likely to just wander in and wreck someone else's work. This generation worries me. They seem to not care. They are passive, heading towards shallow. *sigh*
**later note** this also explains why I was so good at teaching gymnastics and am feeling like I'm pretty rotten at this. Gymnastics is dangerous, exciting, and demands a lot of listening and concentration from the kids, and much rust between them and the coach. Tey trust you, over and over not to drop them on their head, or from a height, that your advice will stop them from falling, etc. You help them push their boundaries and gain self respect, confidence and independence. I think it's a lot closer to the pioneer situation than you usually get, and the mutual respect has an easy home there.
so I occaisionally re-read the children's books by Laura Ingalls Wilder about her childhood and youth growing up on the frontier in the 1880s. Yes it has been cheesified in the TV Little HOuse on the Prairie series, but there is a lot there.
Looking at the kids I have in aftercare, certain aspects of child-rearing and what children had to face stand out very strongly. FIrst, how much children are capable of it terms of not only ability, but it responsibility. This I know from myself and from my cousin Clara (raised alternately in a log cabin with no running water and in Costa Rica, where she helped keep goats, among other things). Children thrive with real responsibility. They look forward to the moment when they are old enough to help, or to do it all on their own, or be trusted with something important- if you frame it like that. If work is considering demeaning, somebody else's job, unimportant, and boring- not so much.
The kids at my school seem to think of too many people as servants. Yes it is a private school, but you know, the kids who on full financial aid (benefits of doing the sec work and the books) and living in the tenderloin do it too. Kids on the bus who are obviously on the poorer end do it too. It seems to me that this generation of kids in the US is being raised as pets. Care for it, feed it, give it love, but don't expect anything from them, coddle them, wince at disipline. It sounds like you're being nice, doing all the right things, driving to soccer, etc., but it cripples them. It disrespects their potential. It conditions them to expect the world on a platter for them each day. This is of course a total generalisation, and I know many exceptions, but I see it everywhere, more and more.
Responsibility is so key to raising a kid. Wilder's books are full of the work that she did (at 6, 7, 10, 16 years old) that helped her family survive. It must have been so easy to see that she was important then. To feel the benefit of helping out. It was also dead easy to see that listening to her parents was important too. I can't even count the times they would have probably died if they hadn't, and quickly. EX: you're crossing a sping-swollen river in a covered wagon. It is threatening to capsize. You want to stand up and get a look, but dad tells you to stay down and you do out of sheer reflex. Standing would very likely have flipped the wagon and drowned everyone. There are also examples in the books of neighbors and cousins, who through not listening to their parents wrecked their families- not doing their job and spoiling the year's harvest, for example. Endangering themselves to the point of near death or injury... hmmm. The responsibility for such behavior is put on the parents for spoiling the kid into even concieving of such behavior. The term "spoiled" in this case stands out. It is spoken of with a special horror in those books. That a child would go bad, be ruined, like spoiled grain. Hmmm.
I have great respect for what children can do. I also believe that they respect themselves more when they get real responsibilities. That when they learn how hard it is to do a thing, that they are so much less likely to just wander in and wreck someone else's work. This generation worries me. They seem to not care. They are passive, heading towards shallow. *sigh*
**later note** this also explains why I was so good at teaching gymnastics and am feeling like I'm pretty rotten at this. Gymnastics is dangerous, exciting, and demands a lot of listening and concentration from the kids, and much rust between them and the coach. Tey trust you, over and over not to drop them on their head, or from a height, that your advice will stop them from falling, etc. You help them push their boundaries and gain self respect, confidence and independence. I think it's a lot closer to the pioneer situation than you usually get, and the mutual respect has an easy home there.