Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Thinking about parents and children
I've been reading a book Aunt Shirley got me for Xmas called
"Raising Witches" which is quite the cool book, even without the witchy bits. One of the points it makes is that if you don't belong to a coven, it's very important create your own coming of age or initiation ceremony for the child. Pretty much every civilization has or has had such a ceremony so I can see that there is some general wisdom behind it. Which got me thinking, which is often scary and leads to convoluted reasoning and long, rambling blog posts.
My own parents, who I'm beginning to think didn't
mean to be awful, but I'm not quite ready to go there yet, treated me like a recalcitrant seven year old my entire life. Until one day, during one of the biggest self-implosions of my idiotic youth, they turned around and said "You're a grown-up now, we can't tell you what to do." Thusly leaving me in a bizarre state of mixed euphoria and shell shock. I was never prepared for adulthood. I was never ushered into adulthood. In fact, it's just occurring to me, but they rather treated it the same way they taught me how to swim. They threw me over the side of the boat in the middle of the river and said swim to shore. Except then I had a life-jacket. If I hadn't had John when I was suddenly thrown into the raging current of adulthood, I probably would have completed the self-implosion, I suppose.
So I suppose it's part subconscious and part deliberate intent NOT to parent like I was done that has caused me to treat my own kids with a certain level of maturity. I've tried to let them know that they are not only going to be held responsible but that I am going to teach them how to be responsible and that they are capable of being responsible. I try to let them know what I expect of them, what the consequences are for their behavior, both positive and negative, and that it's completely up to them how they choose to use these responsibilities.
Last night at dinner, Aidan mentioned how cool it was to see the inside of the High School when they had the Holiday concert there. They got to see they lunch area and there were kids sitting on the floor eating, to which I said "Well, that's cool, we never got to do that." And there were kids sitting on the table, which Aidan thought was cool. At that point something in my head said I needed to draw a line. I have no idea why. LOL So I made a point of telling both of them that there are going to be some kids who do things that our rules don't allow, like sitting on furniture. I said I'm letting you know up front that at no point do I want to hear "so-and-so gets to do this" or "so-an-so's parent's let them do that" because I flat out don't care. I don't care what other people do, I don't care what other parents let their kids do. We have laid out a set of rules that don't only apply at home but everywhere they go for the rest of their lives or until they are 18 at which point they can follow the rules or move out. They seemed to accept that alright. I'm sure that won't last, but at least they've been forewarned. :D
This evening John found like five breakfast bar wrappers on the floor, under some stuff. Now I HATE that. And I've hollered at them about it MANY times before, so I was more than a little annoyed. Ok, I was pissed. So I lay down the ultimatum. The next time a breakfast bar wrapper is found on the floor, and I don't care who left it there, they are both going to get doomed. I think it's important that they kind of start looking out for each other a little bit. Especially Ian. He has enough trouble getting out of his own head, I at least want him to understand the concept of being part of a family unit. A team model kind of thing. Relying on and being relied on. I think that's a good thing.
The other day Aidan was goofing around while she was brushing her teeth and pulled the shower rod down. It's one of those tension rods so it doesn't take much. She tried to put it back up herself by standing on the side of the tub and asked Ian for help, but he just ignored her. I don't want him to feel like he needs to do things he isn't old enough to do, but I want him to understand that when someone asks for help, you should at least respond. Either by helping or getting help. I want him to feel like he is responsible as an older brother and member of this family to either help his little sister or come and get us when she needs help. I think Aidan is starting to get the responsibility thing, but at this point it's more of an after the fact thing. She'll get smudgy fingerprint mess all over the windows, but when she gets caught she's wicked happy to get the rag and clean up. Hopefully the "don't do it in the first place" thing will come later.
Dude, parenting ain't for wimps. Peace out.
posted by Kimber
at 7:20 PM ::
~#~
(2) comments
2 Comments:
Gee whiz, I got that book because I thought it might help educate John! I'm glad it's helping you too. I got one for myself called "Wicca for Beginners" by Thea Sabin. I'm planning on tackling that after I finsh the History of Scotland that I'm reading now.
As far as that sibling helping each other thing...sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. I still remember the group punishments I got. Even though I had no idea my brothers had done something that would get us punished!! Growl...
Well, trial and error is trecherous ground at the best of times. LOL I think that at this point we've done more good than harm. A couple of coworkers and I were sitting around talking and they were complaining about what a trial it is to get their kids up and ready for school in the morning. Dude, my kids get up and get ready to go before I even wake up! ROFL!! If I could get them over the breakfast bar wrapper thing we'd be golden!
StSquirrel, at
11:47 PM
