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Originally Posted by Strangler Lewis
Let's get down to cases here. Are we talking JW? Waldorf? Single mothers in housing projects?
If Waldorf, the Waldorf parents I know obsess, worry and fetishize their child's development more than any other parents I've met.
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Lol. None of the above. I'd rather put my kids in soccer when they are six months old than hang out with JW parents, and I have a whole other set of issues with Waldorf philosophy (that probably only you and I would be interested in discussing, so I'll shut up about it).
I guess if I have to categorize my parenting friends the best I can do is this: Most of us have read a book called
Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn, that stresses working with kids rather than doing to kids, and we practice it to the best of our ability. We are all committed to gentle discipline (which means teaching, not punishing) and in general we avoid praising (which probably sounds more hands off than it is - we'll say, "you did it!" rather than, "good job!"). Some of us will homeschool/unschool. I doubt any of our kids has ever had a pop tart. I guess you can just call it crunchy. Though I'm not sure how that is relevant to this discussion.
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Originally Posted by Strangler Lewis
I can't really say whether I agree with you without a sense of what kind of disappointments you expect your kids to be able to endure. Knowing a little something of your background, I am suspecting that they are fairly minimal. The sense I get from your post is not that the kids are learning to handle disappointment well; it's that they are learning that there is not much in this worldy world worth aspiring to or being excited about. (In the Enneagram, that's a type 5--the unenlightened Buddha. It's what I test as.)
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I'm not sure how you would get that sense from my post. I expect my kids to be able to handle any disappointment that comes their way. Some will be small some will be large, but I also expect them to succeed in just about everything they do.
I find it ridiculous that you think they wouldn't get excited about anything. That's the whole point of this whole parenting system is so that kids retain their zeal for learning and their excitement about life. My three year old can tell you things about dinosaurs that I didn't even know. He drew the insides of his intestines yesterday. His penchant for geeking out about things is almost scary. I imagine that one day he will like something enough to want to compete. I just don't see the point of stinking musical chairs and setting kids up for disappointment. I'd rather give them the tools they need for success.
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Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight
But that's what I'm talking about. It's not the competition, it's the parental attitude. And that's where this all started. Yes, I agree that pushing competition, and specifically pushing a "win, win, win!" attitude is bad. But I just don't believe that the remedy to that is to remove competition, or redefine competition to "everyone's a winner". I believe the remedy is to encourage personal accomplishment within the framwork of competition with winning and losing being merely part of a set of factors to guage progress and success. I don't suppose our ideal are as far apart as this discussion is making it seem. I don't plan on signing my proginy up for AYSO as soon as they squirt out. I just don't feel a need to put as much stock in actively avoiding competition as you appear to.
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If a game is going on that he wants to participate in, then he's more than welcome to. I just don't see the point of setting them up for competition so early. But yes, having everyone win a game that clearly isn't designed for that is dumb. I think that kids are smart enough to know that. There are plenty of games where there is no need for everyone to be a winner or a loser. They are just games you play for fun.