Parenting advice from non-parents?

Sometimes it can be hard to take advice from a “childless bystander” but in a recent op-ed, the New York Times’ Frank Bruni makes it easy. His observations of modern parenting are deeply amusing and often true, especially his take on gratuitous praise and how parents sabotage their children’s eating habits by talking about them excessively. A few points seem a bit tired: when he describes modern parents as prone to “boundless fretting” it feels like Judith Warner’s Perfect Madness or New York Magazine’s July 2011 issue all over again. Happily, he concludes with the observation that most children turn out fine no matter how they are fed, transported, soothed, disciplined, etc. He’s certainly right about that. That, and the fact that all children these days eat way too many chicken fingers.

Coming In For A Landing?

 image from Free Range Kids

A article making the rounds these days is Tim Elmore's  "Three Huge Mistakes We Make Leading Kids...And How To Correct Them."  The mistakes not the children.

It is a good reminder to let our children take risks, make mistakes and replace phony praise with genuine and merited encouragement.  Of course, chances are, if you read this blog, you have probably read The Blessing of A Skinned Knee, which is the gold standard of such parenting advice.

What I wonder is, it getting better?   Are more parents giving their children a little more freedom to make mistakes?  Are some of those helicopter parents coming in for a landing?  According to Free Range Kids letting your kids walk a couple of blocks in your own neighborhood may land you in jail.  This article on What Makes a Nightmare Sports Parent - And What Makes a Great One suggests that there is still a lot of work to be done.

One result of such parental management seems to be the children who call home 8-10 times a day from college asking questions like "should I have a hot dog or chili for lunch?" or "Should I do my Econ or History homework first?"  One also reads about parents helping (?) to negotiate a person's first salary and calling a company's HR dept to advocate for their offspring. 

Thoughts?

Friday Frivolity - Goodnight Nanny Cam

This latest spoof on that old favorite Goodnight Moon found in The New Yorker is rife with social commentary.

Image from The New Yorker

We seem to be reaching MAXIMUM CHRISTMAS EXCITEMENT around here - can only imagine how EXCITING next week will be!!!!!

 If you are searching for any last minute gifts we are loving the gift guide Joanna is running over at Cup of Jo.

Have a wonderful wintery weekend! 

Resisting the Rug Rat Race

The phrase "Rug Rat Race" has to be one of the more alliterative labels for the hyper-parenting we all recognize, bemoan, and debate. When I first heard it, thanks to the recent Wall Street Journal piece,  "Opting out of the Rug Rat Race" I was taken with the cleverness of the term - even a tad jealous not to have coined it myself - and of course immediately hooked into reading the article. 

In the story, author Paul Tough lays out something glaringly obvious yet rarely delineated so scientifically: building strong cognitive skills, through early reading, math, or academic drills does not necessarily lead to lifetime success and hapiness, but qualities like resiliency, curiosity, persistence and self-control do. Having some freedom and autonomy builds life skills. Helicopter parenting does not. The author even goes so far to say, "... it seems, the most valuable thing that parents can do to help their children develop noncognitive skills—which is to say, to develop their character—may be to do nothing." Yes! We've said it before: sometimes it's best to do absolutely nothing. Yet, we could not be more gratified to see it espoused publicly.

With a 7th grader in a new school, with a new mobile phone, and 45 minute bus ride each way, I find myself newly tempted to engage in hyper-parenting. At 2:45pm on a week day, I might find my fingers twitching to text a reminder: "don't forget your gym bag!" but I pause, hear those chopper blades thrumming, and think to myself: put the phone down, you helicopter parent, you. Seems like I'll need to excercise a little self control if I want to foster all those life skills like resiliency, curiosity, persistence and, oh, yes, self-control.

P.S. For the record, the term "Rug Rat Race" was coined in 2009 by economists Garey Ramey and Valerie A. Ramey in a paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research - not that I'm ambitious enough to have actually read such an academic paper on parenting. I just like to give credit where credit is due.