The ABCs of Life

I’ve been thinking of this since reading Audrey’s entry When Mom Says No. It’s about parents contradicting each other about the don’ts in the house and end up - unintentionally, I believe - negatively marking the other “the baddie”. I don’t think this is abnormal in many families. I think, for humans we are, such contradiction exists and common too. But what should be rare is the ‘baddie’ character formed throughout the differences we have in opinion with our partners.

I’ve once asked a family motivator about how, if my partner and I are of different backgrounds; one is way too lenient and the other is too strict, what should we do to avoid confusion to our kids and of course unpleasant moment in our relationship? He said, both leniency and strictness are good and bad according to circumstances. Avoid saying too many ‘Nos’ as it implies negativity to your child. But if your child is exposed to danger by doing something he wants to then being lenient on it won’t be good anyway. Should you not say no to your toddler playing with switches and plugs? I bet that’ll be the first thing that comes out of your mouth as programmed by Mr. Brain up on your head.

Kids are kids. Shouldn’t we just tolerate a kid’s liking of sweets, ration them in our houses and encourage proper teeth care rather than depriving him/her from having any, helping him to bear grudge against us the rest of our lives? Ok, I might have watched too much of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but being unnecessarily strict on those little things will only bring nothing but unhappiness in life. What’s the point of going against a child’s nature wanting them to behave like an adult when they’ve only started to grow up?

That’s point numero uno. As parents, the mom and dad, it will help a lot if we are sensible in our judgements and decisions. Treat kids like kids. When I was learning parenting in the university, I learnt that a child is egocentric (in thinking) by nature; not that he/she is selfish but interprets the world around according to his/her limited understanding. As the world revolves around him, taking another’s perspective won’t be that easy. Not that you should not carefully explain why you don’t want your kids to do/want something, but be sensible not to make it a long lecture emphasizing on nothing but your own anger and frustrations to satisfy. Many of us though ‘passed’ the level of egocentric thinking when reaching adulthood still fails to understand how children do not understand things the way we do. We sometimes unfortunately expect a child to understand that he/she should be responsible, behave well, stay clean and other things that’s actually expected from us, the adult beings. You want them to learn all that, but through their level of understanding of how, so you train them to take good care of their toys, tidying up after play etc. but not punishing them with long babbles and anger that at the end of the day switch on the confusion button of whether I did what Mummy dislike or Mummy dislikes me? I do appreciate the reality that we aren’t angels ourselves and we might sometimes act insensibly towards little matters concerning our children. That’s why it’s always important to understand the proper way to ‘parent’ and ‘educate’ our children because not everyone of us are psychologists and teachers whom might learn child psychology or pedagogy at college or university.

And here comes the importance of point number 2, which is, you and your partner makes a team. The parents team. Parenting is both father and mother’s responsibility and not one should feel they are less responsible for their kids. Though usually a mother is the one whom stays at home, observes and nurtures her children most of the time, the father should at least feel that they are equally responsible and try his best to complement his partner. Setting rules, creating a healthy norm and environment for the whole family should come from discussions by the team. There should be a clear understanding between parents that they are together in this noble mission of parenting. If there’s a DON’T decided together, then none of them should turn it into a DO. Consistency is very important to help the child understands, to help you keep your parental credibility and of course, to keep your relationship healthy. Problems come when one says NO but the other says YES. Worse, when one says No and the other says Mummy or Daddy says NO but I want to say YES or I’ll simply say YES! And that’s how a ‘baddie’ image enters reality.

Point number 3; though rules are set there are times when new things happen or unplanned situations take place. I believe that if situations do not allow discussions beforehand, and a team mate needs to decide on his/her own, though the decision might contradict the other team mate’s wish, it should be respected as a rightful decision until another discussion takes place. We should not contradict each other and argue about it in the presence of our children. We should resolve our differences between team mates ONLY, even if the resolution says the decision needs changing later on. Parents should keep this possibility in mind when they are talking about managing their homes. It should be one of the rules set for even parents need to know what not to do and should be done too. Every team mate should be given the trust he/she will need to run the house when on their own. And if a team mate finds out the unfavourable decision from their child, he/she should find the other and talk it over, not simply giving negative comments about the decision straight to the child. The decision-maker should also understand that this is a team job and people do flaw. Sometimes everyone makes a decision that might not be most appropriate or foolish as our minds and energy both have their limits. Two minds might decide better and flaw lesser. So if we might do things wrongly, we should accept our mistakes and be ready to apologize and correct them.

Lastly, I’d like to conclude by saying …

(a) there should be no ‘baddie’ in the family. I can’t imagine a person who is loving but at the same time treats his/her partner like the criminal/the-one-to-blame in front of their offspring. That shall never make a truly happy family.

(b) it is OK to say sorry. To your team mate and even to your babies. Being an adult or a parent doesn’t mean you can never be guilty. People makes mistakes. Accept and try to make things right, then life goes on right too. As much as you want your child to understand that it is important to say sorry, and it is OK to make mistakes (but you need to realise and make things right afterwards), YOU should be the first to understand this. Now, we don’t want to be thinking like an egocentric adult do we?

(c) you can read hundreds of books, articles, blogs etc. on parenting but in certain circumstances only real life experience will teach you how and what to do. That’s why mistakes are at times inevitable, especially if you are less exposed to childcare before you have your own. It will also helps to learn from the experience of others.

I’ve written plenty and would like to know what you think about this entry. Parenting is no easy job so let’s help each other be better at it. Don’t forget to tell your story or leave a comment after reading this. Help yourself to more information about the way a child thinks; click.