Kids need to marinate in love… and after about 16 years, they are really juicy.
Kids need to marinate in love… and after about 16 years, they are really juicy.
BRUCE JOEL RUBIN
Do you provide a sanctuary for your children to become whom they most wish to be?
As you discuss parenting with many different people, you get many different perspectives as to the proper solutions to the myriad issues that arise as your children grow.
In the course of these discussions, you might hear a full spectrum of advice, predicated upon the countless variances each of these parents utilize in the course of their journey with their children…
I distinctly remember a moment in my early parenting years in which a dad at a swim birthday party asked me whether or not I was “a referee or a coach type of parent?” I did not know what he meant, so I inquired. He said “a referee blows the whistle at every infraction, whereas a coach is more likely to allow the child latitude and only make corrections when they are going too far astray.”
Not being one for sports metaphors, I don’t think I paid much attention at that moment, but politely acknowledged the guidance. And then I started watching my own actions and choices as a parent, and in my behavior, I recognized that I was truly being much more of a referee than a coach, and I started to change my methodologies. It really made a significant difference.
People are quick to discover frustrations in parenting. In the course of doing this, we try a lot of different things that we believe are going to work, and some of them do, and some of them don’t. It varies with every child.
Concurrent to these experiences, the world is changing at such a rapid clip that it is not even close to the same world that we grew up in, years back. If we project our expectations that our children are going to have a childhood like ours, we are not taking into consideration how much the world has truly changed and evolved.
If you look at the entertainment engagement of children, at this age versus 20, 30 or 40 years back, you are going to lament that “they are all on multiple devices, and that they are dissatisfied with things that we felt perfectly excited about as children.” This does not take into consideration the fact that we, as a species, have evolved, and that their brains are much more interested in interactive engagement, as opposed to passive entertainment.
The desire to sit and watch something passively for two hours is of less interest to current children than it was during our generations. As per today’s aphorism, which was taken from an incredibly moving film, called My Life, starring Michael, Keaton, and Nicole Kidman, written and directed by Bruce Joel Rubin, I believe the secret to raising a well-rounded child, is very much steeping them in lots of love and understanding.
This is not to say that there are not needs for boundaries and repercussions, but ultimately, working to try and create mutual understanding, could not be more important in the course of having an effective dynamic between parent and child.
Happy Tuesday!
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