ok here are examples when I have 'pulled rank' recently.
5 YO tries to run in road to retrieve ball. I catch him in time but he yells at me, struggles and tries to do it again. I catch him and try and explain but he is in a single minded 'I have to get my ball despite oncoming traffic. I ask him to go in the house. No response. I tell him to go in the house. No response. I tell him that he is being unsafe and either he must walk into the house or I will carry him. He has a problem with impulse control but that is ok. He is 5YO and is learning it gradually.
Same 5YO can list you the reasons why I require him to use a car seat and I explain that I love him and that it is my job to keep him safe. He can also talk how upset it makes him when his friends don't use a car seat. He however sometimes refuses to wear it and claims "its my body, I don't have to wear it". I have a good (adult) friend who used to not wear her seatbelt also, I also pulled rank. "I'm sorry X, I have a rule that no-one rides in my car without a belt on. No exceptions." She replied that she was an adult and I answered that yes, that was true and she could do what she liked in her own car.
My 14month hits when he is frustrated or cross. We have a sign for gently and I acknowledge his feelings and tell him that he needs to be gentle with mummy. I try and redirect his hands to thumping a pillow instead but he will usually try to continue to hit and scratch me. If he continues then I lift him off the bed (or wherever we are).
"Nobody pulls rank on me. I will heed people's advice and make my own decisions that I alone am responsible for."
If you were in my house and continued to hit me you can be dang sure that I would ask you to leave and if you didn't we would ask the police to remove you. If you were in my car and didn't wear your seatbelt then I would not drive you anywhere.
"Start asking your child what options s/he has in a situation. If they can't come up with something, offer your own suggestions. Talk about what possible outcomes each could have. After all, you learn more in your first three years of life than you do for the rest of your life and (IMO) they are learning who they are by finding these things out, is it better for them to find out who they are now rather than going through that pubescent identity crisis we all went through?"
Firstly we didn't all have pubescent identity crisis. I was and have been very secure in who I am (o: My only crisis came when I was bullied and tormented at school.
You are also assuming I don't already talk about outcomes and options. At this very moment my 5YO is unloading and reloading the dishwasher. He is doing it to earn money to replace the light fixture he broke this weekend. It was his idea that we bought another and my idea that he earn the money (he wanted me to pay for his mess and I said no). It was also his idea that we go to Home Depot to find out how much he needed to earn.
"We think we need to use "child" words around them and that they can't make decisions on their own, but they can. We just need to show them how. My son doesn't have to be 25 yo to know how to reason, he is capable of learning and doing it now. "
My 5YO reasons very well and is very comfortable speaking with adults. Today he initiated a conversation about sympathy on the way home from school. Oh and he knows what "initiated" and "conversation" mean, although he still has trouble with 'tomorrow' and 'yesterday' .My 14 month old already knows what happy, sad, grumpy and cross mean. He can sign some of them and will answer yes or no to questions about them.
I'm posting with the utmost respect for your opinions, but I also feel the need to state that I don't know why some feel that "pulling rank" is a bad thing. We're parents - it's our responsibility to ensure our children's safety and to maintain order in our households so that our children can learn and grow.
I do believe that our children may understand a great deal more than we give them credit, but I do not believe that they are willing or capable to do what is right. My almost three year old is a good example. Tonight while cooking on the stovetop, she wanted to touch the skillet. She kept putting her finger near the skillet saying "This is hot - this will give me an owie." We've talked about hot pans and she knows why she shouldn't touch them, but she insists on trying. She's just too immature to control impulses. It's my responsibility to put my foot down and send her to the other room until I'm done cooking. I could let her "live and learn" but I don't know what sort of mom that would make me.
Another example is my co-worker's 16 year old daughter who met a 24 year old online and wanted to visit him in another city. My co-worker's dilemma was that her daughter had done everything she could have asked for - taking a friend, letting her call the boy's mom beforehand, giving her an agenda for the day - but co-worker couldn't think of a good reason to deny her the trip. The obvious thought on my mind is why don't you just tell her that as her mother, you don't think it's appropriate for 16 year olds to date 24 year olds.
Final example, when I was 16, DH and I planned to get married. We had money saved, both had jobs, knew where we would live, were signed up for pre-marital classes, everything. My dad put his foot down and said absolutely not - he told us he would support us in a few years after I had at least two years of college but would not consent then. And you know what? He was right. Even though I felt so prepared then, I look back and realize that DH would never had made it is we were married when I was 16. The fact is my dad knew more and had personal experience on what it takes to get married and have it work.
I hate to sound like a broken record, but I really, really feel strongly about this. As parents, we have the knowledge and the experience to help our children be successful in life. Yes, we should talk to them. Yes, we should rationalize with them. Yes, we should teach them how to reason. But when push comes to shove, we have to make the tough decisions. Democracy does not work in families. I've seen it too many times growing up and now that I'm older. Friends I know who grew up that way have weak relationships with their parents and no ability for self-discipline. Even if a six year old knows he needs the four food groups to grow and be strong, he'll still probably chose hot dogs every night for dinner if given the choice.
We do need to help our children learn to control themselves and to make positive decisions but that means helping them get there. I think letting kids free reign to control their own destiny is doing them a huge diservice.
Scarlet,
It seems that I have really upset you and I apologize. As I stated, I respect your choices parenting but wanted to offer some of my revelations.
In reponse to your hypothetical situations or recent experiences, running into the street is a dangerous situation. I would and have also grabbed up my children to prevent death and injury. Have you showed your 5yo what happens when a car runs over a can or bottle? Maybe this is an experiement he might like to repeat for a refresher course?
Riding in a seat without a carseat is (IMO) dangerous as well. And if they choose to not want to go for a ride then they can stay home. Why should I have to drag them in a bad mood around. I hated that when I was younger.
The 14mo hitting is not necessarily dangerous. You said you gave him a pillow to puch, but didn't explain if you held it for him? Sometimes we all get frustrated and what better way to get it out than physically? I love (or used to http://www.amitymama.com/images/icons/wink.gif) running when I am upset. Maybe 14mo wants the interactivity of having someone hold the pillow for him or maybe redirecting to a pillow fight he would find enetertaining, or one of those clown punching bags.
I wouldn't stand for someone purposefully scratching me (unless I asked them too lol). Is there something else you can offer the child to give the stimulation of scratching? Maybe a nail file or learn together what it feels like to scratch different fabrics. When we were couch shopping I loved scratching the fabric. Guess I am wierd.
If someone were in my car I would expect them to wear a seatbelt because I am not ready or willing to accept the feelings I would have with seeing someone fly out my windsheild if there were an accident, but that is a hypothetical.
That is cool that you didn't experience any identity crisis. But I can tell you that most of the people I went to high school with did have it.
I didn't mean to insinuate that you weren't already reasoning with your children. I am sorry if I wrote that out in a bad way. I am certainly not very good at writing things out well. I can't even get them into spoken word a lot of times!
I hope this clarifies a little better my intent of what I wrote.
Hi sheri, thanks for the apology. I was upset. It was because I felt you were making assumptions about my parenting without really knowing me or my children.
My five year old unfortuantly knows very well the consequences of car accidents as a friend of ours has a brain injured child due to a car accident. We have together followed her progress since the accident and talked about it. The little girl in question was close to death for some time and we lit a candle for her every evening for several weeks.
This is the trouble. He knows logically the reasons behind our rules but has not yet matured enough to control his impulses all of the time.0000000000000 (Rohan is helping me)
In answer to your questions, no I don't hold the pillow, but I do model the behaviour and make the same grunt of frustration he does when he is cross. Then I take his hand and do it with him and then sometimes he will do it himself. Sometimes he is just really cantankerous though and doesn't want to know, he is angry at me -- e.g. I don't want to nurse him and he is cross that I'm offering a drink or cuddle instead.
"Why should I have to drag them in a bad mood around"
LOL this happened last night. Joshua was in a really grouchy mood and verbally lashing out at everyone. I suggested a few things to him to help him improve his mood, but the more I said the more I was big bad mummy. We were going out for dinner to his choice of restaurant but I told him that while I was sorry he was feeling so crabby, I would not be taking him out while he continued to be unpleasant to everyone around him. Surprisingly he decided that it was worth sorting himself out rather than staying home with a babysitter and missing a trip to Dennys!
I will start out with my hope that you read my above post. Maybe that will clarify what I wrote a little better since it apparently did not come out right.
I agree that we do need to keep our children safe. I never meant to imply that we didn't.
Have you ever wanted to twiddle your fingers through the open flame of a candle? Or seen anybody do it? They know that it is hot and it can hurt them but they still want to experiment with how much heat they can handle or how much pain they can handle. I don't think the situation has anything with her immaturity but rather her wanting to experiment with heat. That would make you a mom that trusted her child to know what the child could handle.
What is wrong with a 16yo dating a 24yo? I dated a 21yo when I was 16. And when I was 19, I was seeing someone who was 32yo. Men my age have always seemed too interested in other things to me. I can understand the mother having fears about it but what is behind it? The daughter really wants to experiment with sex or is she mature for her age and wanting to be with company that is interested in the same things? It doesn't mean that the intentions of either party is "bad".
As for your early marriage, you really don't know if it would have worked and had it not, you would have learned some valuble lessons. My sister got married when she was 16 and learned many a lessons about marriage and (may I announce) is happily engaged and ready to commit and make it work.
Our children have innate knowledge to succede and survive and thrive and learn. IME no person can eat hotdogs everyday of their life, but hey there is protein, fat and carb. It will keep your body going. My children have always eaten really well, but for istance, my dd has been asking for eggs for breakfast every morning, what's wrong with that?
I don't understand what exactly you mean by your friends growing up in a democratic household so I can't really comment on that.
Your sentence about your children's destiny is not very respectful at all. What I read into what you wrote is very much along the lines of 1950's thinking 'that you will be what I tell you to be'. Please correct me if I am wrong. In the end it will be their decision.
I think we have very different thoughts on how children learn and grow. I truly believe that children need boundaries and it is our responsibility to set and enforce those. I know that I'll probably be flamed for this but in a lot of cases I think parents know what's better for their kids. In my marriage example, sure I could have gotten married, I could have learned a lot of "life lessons," I might have been miserable the whole time too. My dad spared me that. Why would we not want to share our experience and knowledge with our children - which to me is what we are doing when we "pull rank." To me, not pulling rank is like handing your child a telescope and saying "go learn about the universe." They'll spend all their time re-learning discoveries that have already been made instead of building upon that knowledge. I apologize if you think it is disrespectful, but I do think environment plays a huge role in a child's success in life. I do believe that children are born with an innate desire to succeed and flourish in life, but how they are nurtured, especially when they are very young is going have a huge influence on whether they can reach their full potential. Anyways, I did read your original post before I wrote my response, and I apologize if it didn't sound like I understanding you. I have a miserable cold and my head's a bit fuzzy. I just wanted to clarify where I stand (although I think I might be off on a tangent now). This is probably an "agree to disagree" situation.
**My point is that we underestimate our children. We think we need to use "child" words around them and that they can't make decisions on their own, but they can. We just need to show them how. My son doesn't have to be 25 yo to know how to reason, he is capable of learning and doing it now. **
This is the first thing that jumped out at me though. Why do we need to force a young child to have the same thoughts as a 25yo though? My son is 5.5 years old. I want him to be 5.5 years old. I want him to jump, run, leap, giggle, snuggle. I want him to call me Mommy for quite a bit longer. I don't underestimate what and who he is. I live in the now for him. He wants to learn about space. Sure, there are many books that 25yo people could read, but not appropriate and scary for a 5.5 year old. Heck the first time we looked through a telescope and saw Jupiter, he was freaked out and thought Jupiter was landing on earth! After explaining how the telescope worked (in 5.5 year old terms), it was so much fun to see the awe in his eyes about the infinite size of the world we live in.
While I am very respectful of my children (most of the time, at least), I celebrate their childhood and allow them to stay children. Too often these days are children forced to be adults; thus, children are making adult decisions, like sex, drugs, alcohol, and violence. I am enjoying their childhood, singing the children songs, doing puzzles, playing games, even talking the "baby talk" with both kids, who giggle and snuggle with me when I DO do that. I think it reminds them of a time of comfort and security. Heck, I still like to call my mom Mommy every once in awhile, especially when I'm sick. And, I'm 32!!
OK---just my opinion on the above statement.
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Missy, I think that statement was again misunderstood. I never meant to imply that I was or am taking my children's youth away. Quite the opposite, I am letting them have it to do what they feel they need to do with it.
That's funny about your son and his first telescope experience. My children have been exposed to skywatching, tlelscopes and binoculars so we never experienced that. But if they were to be afraid of something and couldn't comprehend what I was speaking of, of course I would change the wording to help them understand. I may know a lot of big words but there are many times that I need someone to explain something in simple terms for me.
Maryalene,
Why would you be flamed for that?? I would think everyone here would be respectful of a parent's choice to choose their own parenting style. I hope you don't think I was flaming you. My intentions were simply to point out another theory. A different perspective.
When I first read about tcs, I thought it was crazy. I thought, 'no way am I giving up control of my children'. Everybody has different beliefs in how to raise their children and as long as there is no physical or mental abuse, I can respect their choices. I am certainly not a perfect parent. TCS requires a lot of thought and in a tight spot, I do not produce the best ideas. But I am learning a lot from Dave who does think well fast.
Again, I do apologize if you felt I was flaming you. I understand you are making the right choices for you and your family.
No, I didn't think you were flaming me. http://www.amitymama.com/images/icons/smile.gif Sometimes I just get the feeling that "authoritative parenting" (for lack of a better term) is not always well received here. (I wasn't really worried about you flaming me - just flames in general). Like I said, I'm a bit under the weather today and maybe feeling a little touchy. Thanks for sharing the info on tcs. I've read a lot about it but don't necessarily agree. It is food for thought though. Have a good evening!
ITA Maryalene. There is a fine line that we as parents walk between allowing children to exlplore and learn and also protecting their safety and providing a secure, stable foundation upon which they can confidently base their decisions as adults. I see so many parents not protect their children for fear of "dampening their spirit" or whatever else they call it, only to end up with a teenager or adult who has no idea how to make good, self-respectful decisions and end up hurting themselves all the time and not understanding why bad things happen to them all the time--it's because their parents didn't demonstrate enough care for their childrens' well-being to set limits so that the child would learn that what seems okay isn't always ACTUALLY okay (like the child who thinks it's no big deal to start a fire in the backyard with matches because he/she will just put it out when they're done, not understanding at that age that fire has a tendency to get away from you, etc, etc.). Children learn how to make good decisions by watching us help them make good decisions when they are young and ALSO b watching us overide their bad decisions if/when necessary, gradually allowing them to experience more and more independence as they show more readiness for it.
BTW, I don't think Maryalene meant "you'll be what I tell you to be" by her sentence regarding their destiny--I think she was referring to their immediate destiny, not who/how they should be for the rest of their lives.
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