Hands Off Parenting?
Talker Parents?
What is this? What's this doing to the children and to the adults of the future?
I just read this article, which was kindly linked off of BritGirl's blog. She wrote an excellent post about this type of parenting style as well.
Since she did such a good job with her post, I won't expound on it much except that as I commented on her post, I found myself with more to say.
We have a friend, C, who has an almost 5 year old, M. C is the talker parent. She thinks she can talk her son out of anything, that by REASONING with him, he will do what he is told and understand WHY it is happening. Uh-huh. Sure. C, as a woman and a friend, is bright, clever, insightful, brilliant, on-the-ball and funny. As a parent, she fails both herself and her son.
The other weekend, at a friend's home, C and M had to leave early to go to the circus. M was playing with the other kids who were there. At any given time, there are probably 5 kids in this home, 3 belonging to my friends and 2 to another couple. M, being an only child, loves the kid interaction. On this day, C packed up M's things and reminded him to get ready to go to the circus. He fussed. He tantrumed. He yelled. He thrashed about. In the lift on the way downstairs, TO THE CIRCUS, I might add, M proceeded to hit his mother about the legs, screaming that he wanted to stay and play with the other kids. She kept saying "Oh, I know you are upset because we are leaving. It is ok to be upset. I'm sorry you feel this way, but this is what we had to do."
Excuse me???
It's not like she removed him from the playgroup to go to the dentist. They were going TO THE CIRCUS!!! She allowed him to hit her repeatedly in the lift to the ground floor and pit a fit the entire way into a cab to take them to the circus.
I don't know about anyone here, but if that were me when I was a child, I would NOT have been going to the circus after that display of insanity.
I can understand him being upset as well. The kids he was playing with are good kids. In all honesty, they tolerate him because he is a whiny, pretentious, spoiled little twat.
What's wrong with the word NO? I heard it MANY times as a child and I turned out just fine. A small spanking could also help in cases like this.
If that were me, I would have smacked my kid back. This is part of the reason I will not have kids. I know I have no patience for this kind of psycho-babble crap that parents use with their kids. I felt like hitting my friend C as well. She might have said something to me, but not to a 5 year old who NEEDS boundaries.
I should send her this link.
3 comments:
Geez, parenting sounds so hard...and in public, everyone's watching. Tough as it gets. I am reminded constantly what marital bliss I enjoy as a childfree family of two.
Hey, just wanted to say thanks for visiting our blog and for leaving the nice presents (comments)!
nice blog
Who'd be a parunt I ask myself. Not me that's for sure :).
It makes me shudder to think of having a child like that. I have no patience for rudeness and indicipline and I think they are completely unecessary. Parents who think they can "reason" with a toddler or a five year-old are, in my opinion, out to lunch. But maybe only when their kids start hitting them will they get the message... by then it will be too late.
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