Raising your child by not doing a single thing

  • smallchild-cartoon_detail.jpgJust looked over a press release for a par­ents’ pub­li­ca­tion that we help put together. The sub­ject line was “Dis­ci­pline with­out pun­ish­ment or rewards: A four-hour work­shop led by [So-and-so], PhD.”

    Four hours? I can do it in five min­utes or so, and I don’t have a PhD or a kid.

    1. You don’t want to be the bad guy, so don’t be. Ever.
    2. You don’t want to feel like #1 makes you self-indulgent, so make up for it by not giv­ing your kid a few things. Com­pli­ment your­self on your integrity.
    3. When your child is hurt­ing the cat, light­ing the couch on fire or say­ing words they learned on YouTube, have an utterly benign and mean­ing­less con­ver­sa­tion and attempt to bore them into compliance.
    4. When you don’t like how Lit­tle Igmo (or Igmina) is turn­ing out as a result of this, begin to detach from par­ent­hood entirely. Learn to be deaf. Refuse to notice when they’re act­ing inap­pro­pri­ately. Adopt a seraphic smile that you can wear as they break things in stores, bully other chil­dren, etc. etc.
    5. Get furi­ous at any­one who does attempt to course-correct your child. Tell them with icy polite­ness that YOU are prac­tic­ing the advanced art of rais­ing your child by not doing a sin­gle thing.
    6. When your kid gets his/her first job, move and don’t leave a for­ward­ing address.

    Okay, so I broke ranks with that last one. But come onnnn. “Rais­ing your child with­out pun­ish­ment or rewards”?? I didn’t house­train my DOG with­out pun­ish­ment or rewards. Kids have a lot more intel­li­gence than dogs (even­tu­ally), but they also start off in exactly the same place — being unaware that they are not the cen­ter of the uni­verse. And unfor­tu­nately for all the faint-hearted par­ents out there, there’s also a basic rule that exists at their core until you over­come it: If you aren’t the boss, then I must be.

    Any­way, there’s today’s rant. This mes­sage brought to you by the Teach­ers of Amer­ica. Motto: You only have to be around them in sum­mer; think how WE feel!

    PS: I couldn’t resist look­ing to see who is spon­sor­ing this “work­shop.” Oh, of course, it’s the Uni­tar­ian Church. We belonged to one of those for a short time when I was lit­tle. My par­ents even­tu­ally quit for their own rea­sons (some­thing to do with an obscene ser­mon, as I recall), but I was glad to go, because I was utterly dis­gusted with the way the kids ran wild all through Sun­day school. Peo­ple some­times for­get that a lot of kids don’t like to see kids rul­ing the roost.

    PSS: This crank­i­ness is not new to me. I just dug up a sketch I did 20 years ago when I got tired of watch­ing a painfully placid adult try to talk to a berserk tod­dler in a library. The verse reads:
    Con­sider how much time’s been wasted on earth,
    Of man’s alto­gether brief sea­son,
    Attempt­ing to do what has never been done:
    To make a small child see reason.

    smallchild-cartoon_smaller.jpg


    Related posts:

    1. The unwanted child might not be unneeded
    2. Who’ll push the swing?
    3. Life report — good news and bad
    4. What makes kids happy — an afterthought

    August 15th, 2009 | Grace | 1 Comment |

One Response and Counting...

  • Gretchen­joanna 08.15.2009

    Well said, well said.
    Did you live in Isla Vista when you were with the EOC? My hus­band and I just vis­ited there for a reunion of the Gene Edwards group through which many EOC founders passed on their jour­ney. I am Ortho­dox now, too, in the OCA.

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