If you are uncertain about parenting styles, take the time to observe children and parents together. Take a newspaper or magazine to a local park or playground and discreetly observe and listen. Go to a café afterwords and make notes on your observations.
Consider the article on parenting styles discussed in class today. For next week, write a parenting styles article based on your own experiences. You might make it a fiction if that feels more comfortable to you, but base it on what you have observed.
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Make Way!
“I want it! Gimme that. Shriek!”
The child is acting out in the grocery store, kicking and screaming for the candy that retailers helpfully place at a child’s eye level next to the cashier. People turn to look. What does the mother (or, just as often, father) mainly do?
Give in! The child gets the candy and a message, too. If I yell loud enough and make a big scene I get what I want. I am the most important person here and don’t your forget it!
Children have always known how to manipulate their parents. Divide and conquer is another tactic many a child uses by going first to the “softer” parent and then informing the “stricter” one that “Dad said it was okay.”
It seems to me the “indulgent/responsive” parent is much more common these days and has, in the mainstream, replaced the “authoritarian” model many my age experienced in the past.
The indulgence continues in what I feel are basic courtesies that all should practice, especially in public. On my return from Europe, I’ve noted again with new eyes another commonplace annoyance experienced by the public that I did not experience overseas.
On the sidewalk, families regularly appear to believe that they have the right to spread across the entire width and, consequently, to block the passage of all who walk in the oncoming direction. I’ve adopted a tactic of my own to deal with this behaviour.
First, I examine the oncoming family for any sign that the parents will counsel their children to make way for an oncoming pedestrian (it does happen, occasionally!). Usually, it appears that the family intends to run me off the sidewalk.
Well, two can play that game! I wear a cap most days, so I lower my head a little to block my view and continue marching along. Most times, someone will yield, although often at the last minute. Sometimes, however, we end up in a standoff, with me stopping completely in front of someone. That usually does the trick.
Now, you may think my examples trivial, but an awareness of others in public is an essential skill that needs to be taught to all children (and can’t be left to the schools, although they do teach it as much as possible). In Amsterdam recently, I experienced a society that had a high awareness of others in public spaces. From seamless bicycle riding in crowded spaces (using warning bells that, magically, parted the crowds) to matter-of-fact help for mothers with strollers and elders needing help to get on a tram, the Dutch were a marvel of cooperation.
And, to my delight, I never once felt that I was involved in a game of chicken on a sidewalk, despite being on some of the busiest streets and sidewalks I’ve ever experienced. Evidently, Dutch parents do spend time counselling their children on courtesy and public behaviour.
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Mr. Ruth’s Family
I had an experience to live in middle class semi-detached house in Delft, Netherlands. Mr. Ruth, the owner, is an English teacher in high school nearby who is almost same age with me and his wife earned money by teaching piano to others at home. They had one crawling son. They lent me cock-loft to earn extra money. The house has a living room and a kitchen in down stair and two rooms (one room for couple and another for baby) in up stair and a cock-loft in third floor.
Within a week, I felt the big cultural difference or confrontation between Dutch and Korean. The biggest one is the way of parenting. They had pleasant time with their son until eight o’clock at the living room in the evening. Then they brought the baby to his room, lie in bed, turn off light and return to their living room even though hardly the son cry. Then they stayed two hours more in living room and went to bed. Because of continuous crying of baby, I went down and opened baby’s room to calm down his crying. Then, I found the baby was tied up in his baby bed to prevent gets up. How can I understand their behavior!
In Korean tradition, baby slept beside their mother and she did her best for comfortable sleeping of baby. Generally, Korean parent do their best fulfill their on children’s demand. Children are considered most valuables in their house. Usually, this mood continued until graduating the primary school. Which is better way of parenting among both extremes? Now a day, those trends are continued until university or marriage since they born one child only. It was called “Mama boy” and became a social issue how to care their son and daughter.
I am touched with Mr. Ruth’s family by letter until now and listen that they had one more son after my leaving and their first son became bridge engineer after graduated the Delft Technical University. I believe they raise their sons successfully.
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On my way to work, riding the train, I saw a father and a son (I assumed) wearing an almost identical outfit--hockey jersey, jeans and rubber shoes. Parents want the best for their children, and most of the time--especially, the successful ones--they believe that the best way towards a bright future, is for their children to follow the paths they have taken. But that is not always right. My cousin, for example, succumbed to depression by not following her passion. As an obedient daughter would do, she granted the wish of her nurse mother, who forced her to take up nursing and forget about her talent as a musician. “I’d end up in U.S,” she told me, “doing something I hate.” “Green pastures,” I said. My cousin, ended up not in U.S, but in a province southern of the Philippines. She ran away from home, to escape, perhaps, and pursue her passion. I don’t blame her mother, just as I don’t blame my father for wanting me to learn Martial Arts; as a professional martial artist, he wanted to see me wearing his black belt. I told him I didn’t like hurting people, and that if ever someone tries to hurt me, I’ll run. He didn’t like what I said, but he didn’t force me obey him. “Of course I don’t want you hurting other people,” he said. “I just want you to be physically fit.“ I practised with him, but gave up in a month or so. (I hated doing splits.) In the book The Prophet, Khalil Gibran said: “Your children are not your children. They come through you but not from you.” I believe that each person has a destiny to fulfill, a life of his own to experience, and parents, or anyone, has no right to dictate what a person should become.
What is the best?
Yes, as parents, we all want to give kids our best, but, what is the best?
One of my friends is an insurance and real-estate agent. She used to deal with those rich families in Vancouver west-side. One of her customers needed to hire a tutor to correct their 5-year-old son’s writing posture. Another family connects the internet to their children’s tree house. Money is a best substitution for their love.
Obviously, some families disagree this luxury way. They prefer opposite: strict and severe can make better result—like German? (No offence). Their kids would take seven-day classes after school, for example, starting from SSAT class to SAT1 until SAT2, all science advanced classes, and all sports, plus music instruments. For their ambitions, seven days a week is too short to cover it. They seem to manufactory a product more than to just raise a kid.
World is colorful. In my viewpoint, Canadian parents keep a special educational thought---they try their best to make kids happy! I have joined a parents workshop hosting by Burnaby school board. The professor told us: “don’t push our kids solving long-division, which would make them depression, even the name, long-division, could scare them.” Would they be happy forever with the lack of the calculation skill?
See, we all are the best parents standing at different circles. There isn’t a standard formula to be followed simply as Math. We have to figure out the rule and the best “best” alone, and regret our mistakes alone as well.
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