Questioning Assumptions About Children
30 Days Towards Connected Parenting / Parenting

Questioning Assumptions About Children

This post is part of the 30 Days Towards Connected Parenting series.

Questioning Assumptions About Children

Everywhere I look I get the impression that parenting these days is about doing something to your child. There’s books and articles on how to manage a range of different behaviours. Tips and tricks for anything you might come across in your parenting journey. Society seems to assume that children need to be strictly controlled lest they take advantage of you or turn into ‘brats’.

This feels like such a pessimistic way to view children. I imagine it also becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you expect parenting to be difficult, parenting becomes difficult. When you view children as defiant and manipulative, children may become defiant and manipulative. If you feel like you must maintain strict control of your children to shape them into ‘good’ human beings, then parenting must seem like a fight. No one likes to be controlled and will naturally fight against it. How tiring!

What if we viewed children more positively? What if we shifted our focus from ‘doing to’ to ‘working with’? What if we treated children with the respect we show adults? After all they are real people. What if instead of focusing on preventing bad behaviour, we noticed the good? What if we showed our children a lot more trust and freedom?

Questioning Assumptions About Children

Children are so very capable and trustworthy when given the chance. Often though, they are not afforded that. We take away choices and options in an attempt to prevent things going wrong before we’ve even given them a chance. We say ‘no’ automatically without considering why. We tell them ‘because I said so’ as if they don’t deserve an explanation. And then when they react badly to our controlling tendencies we reaffirm our beliefs that children are troublesome. We think the answer to our problems is more control, when in fact that will never work and only serves to drive a wedge between us.

The answer is connection. And we can start by challenging society’s assumptions about children. Instead we choose to respect them, treat them like people, let them make choices about their own bodies, allow them as much freedom as we can, be there to guide and support them, keep them safe, view them in a positive light, work through problems with them, and love them unconditionally. Imagine how different so many relationships could be if people changed the way they thought about children. And when you have a stronger relationship, children want to cooperate.

Questioning Assumptions About Children

Parenting needn’t be a fight. It’s a relationship between you and your child. If you were in a romantic relationship where you were constantly fighting or felt controlled you wouldn’t want to stick around. No amount of quick tricks would be able to fix it. You would know you needed to work on your relationship and connection. And so it can be the same for the parent-child bond. When your relationship is not based on power and control, guiding them comes easily. You don’t need the latest method for every different behaviour. You work things out together. And the best part? The connection is always there. Your relationship grows stronger with every challenge you face together.

What outdated assumptions about children do you need to let go of?

In which areas can you give your kids more control over their own lives?

30 Days Towards Connected Parenting

Comments

Kerry
October 3, 2015 at 1:43 am

What good advice…and such a journey to make use of it 🙂
I just finished doing printing with my 4 year old, who literally sings and dances for several minutes between each of the 20 letters. So tiring! I strive to see her as doing just what she was meant to do, and I was successful today, but I’m so drained.
Hope that you have a great day!



    October 6, 2015 at 9:00 am

    Oh my gosh it’s so tiring isn’t it! I once read this quote:

    “So, if you are trying to change your parenting, you are probably trying to change your neural pathways. Especially if you are choosing a path that is different from the way that you were raised. You are forcing your brain to go down weaker pathways. Your brain will want to go down the strong ones, the habitual ones. To keep forcing it down the weak pathways not only strengthens those pathways but will increase cognitive fatigue. Be kind to yourself, it is in those moments that you are most likely to lose it, and perhaps feel that it’s not worth it. Celebrate how far you have already come, apologize, smooth it over, and keep stretching your mind. Be kind, you are rewriting your brain (in addition to encouraging your children’s pathways to change), and that is exhausting work. These are but bumps on the road in your journey of parenting. And you have chosen to walk a harder, but more fulfilling path.”



October 4, 2015 at 1:54 pm

I love this!! You are right. Kids have so much to offer and we can actually learn a lot from them too. It is such a special relationship that will only last a short period of time. Thanks for this! Have a great day!



Clint W
September 15, 2016 at 7:45 am

I love reading posts on parenting. It helps me build new ideas and ways to relax to my boys. I’ve read books that resonate these theories and really appreciate having a practical and concise version to refer to and reread. Thank you for all you do on these posts. I’m sure my family would be thankful too 🙂



February 10, 2018 at 10:10 am

Fantastic thought, thank you for that. Too many people start right away with patronizing approach towards any children they meet throughout their lives, without even trying to make a solid connection with them. Even with the ones with whom they should be the closest!



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