It's All About Respect
TulipGirl currently has a lot of discussion on her blog about various ways to handle children, particularly infants. There are a number of parenting authors who promote treatments such as letting a baby cry herself to sleep alone in her crib, putting a drop of hot sauce on a child's tongue when that child has cursed, imposing arbitrary consequences on children who won't obey, and on spanking babies as young as eight months old. There are also those authors who decry such treatments as cruel, punitive and shaming, and rightly so.
What I find disturbing is that this is even controversial. It seems that in our society children get treated as second class citizens. We do things to our children that we would not even think about doing to another adult. Why?
A lot of new parents are advised, even by their pediatricians, to let their baby cry it out at night. The theory is that this will help baby get used to sleeping all night in the crib. How cruel is that? Here is a baby who is upset, lonely, maybe hungry and trying to ask for help in the only way he knows how. And the loving parents are supposed to just ignore him? Let's suppose I have a really difficult day and I start crying in front of my husbasnd. He first hugs me and runs through a few possible solutions. I'm still not feeling better. "Well," he says, "I've tried everything and I think you're just trying to manipulate me. Go to bed and talk to me in the morning when you're done crying." You'd be right in saying he was being quite insensitive, to say the least. No decent husband would treat his wife this way (and for the record, Crazy Diamond is an awesome husband who'd rather die than treat me that way). So, if it's not OK for a husband to let his wife cry it out alone, then why is it OK for parents to let a baby cry it out alone? The distraught wife can at least do something for herself, like call a friend, but what can the baby do?
What about giving an older child consequences? So my son comes home a half-hour late from riding his bike. I have told him repeatedly that he needs to come home at a certain time to eat dinner with the family. He's late anyway. I tell him to go to bed without any dinner. That's the consequence. I really hate it when Crazy Diamond comes home late from work. Ask him. Should I send him to bed without dinner? OK, so he works hard to support our family and that's different from just goofing off. Suppose he stopped off at a bar a few times and came home late for that reason? Should I refuse to give him dinner then? Of course not. There are much better ways of dealing with this conflict. So again I ask, why is it OK to do this to my child?
I've already written about spanking, so I will only ask this question: what aspect of the real world could I possibly be preparing my child for by spanking her? The Gulag? A mean boss at work? An abusive husband? I have higher aspirations for the MunchK. I want her to live and work in an environment where she is heard and respected. How is she going to know what that means if she's used to being shamed and not heard at home now?
As parents, we want our children to treat us with respect. I am all in favor of that. I just don't believe in teaching my daughter to respect me by being rude and disrespectful to her. And I don't understand why so many people seem to be convinced that speaking disrespectfully to children or doing physically demeaning things to them is an appropriate way to relate to them. I honestly think a lot of people simply haven't thought of it this way.
Let's always remember that our children are people too. Let's treat them with the same consideration we would treat another adult. This includes our babies too. Don't do something to your baby, toddler or older child that you wouldn't want done to you. After all, a child is so much more vulnerable than an adult, and just as deserving of our love and respect.
For those who wish to learn more about respectful parenting, here's a partial list of recommendations to get you started...
Parenting Decisions
Sears Parenting
Attachment Parenting International
Empathic Discipline
Biblical Parenting by Crystal Lutton
Parenting With Grace by Gregory Popcak
Kids, Parents and Power Struggles by Mary Kurcinka
The Baby Book by Dr. William Sears
What I find disturbing is that this is even controversial. It seems that in our society children get treated as second class citizens. We do things to our children that we would not even think about doing to another adult. Why?
A lot of new parents are advised, even by their pediatricians, to let their baby cry it out at night. The theory is that this will help baby get used to sleeping all night in the crib. How cruel is that? Here is a baby who is upset, lonely, maybe hungry and trying to ask for help in the only way he knows how. And the loving parents are supposed to just ignore him? Let's suppose I have a really difficult day and I start crying in front of my husbasnd. He first hugs me and runs through a few possible solutions. I'm still not feeling better. "Well," he says, "I've tried everything and I think you're just trying to manipulate me. Go to bed and talk to me in the morning when you're done crying." You'd be right in saying he was being quite insensitive, to say the least. No decent husband would treat his wife this way (and for the record, Crazy Diamond is an awesome husband who'd rather die than treat me that way). So, if it's not OK for a husband to let his wife cry it out alone, then why is it OK for parents to let a baby cry it out alone? The distraught wife can at least do something for herself, like call a friend, but what can the baby do?
What about giving an older child consequences? So my son comes home a half-hour late from riding his bike. I have told him repeatedly that he needs to come home at a certain time to eat dinner with the family. He's late anyway. I tell him to go to bed without any dinner. That's the consequence. I really hate it when Crazy Diamond comes home late from work. Ask him. Should I send him to bed without dinner? OK, so he works hard to support our family and that's different from just goofing off. Suppose he stopped off at a bar a few times and came home late for that reason? Should I refuse to give him dinner then? Of course not. There are much better ways of dealing with this conflict. So again I ask, why is it OK to do this to my child?
I've already written about spanking, so I will only ask this question: what aspect of the real world could I possibly be preparing my child for by spanking her? The Gulag? A mean boss at work? An abusive husband? I have higher aspirations for the MunchK. I want her to live and work in an environment where she is heard and respected. How is she going to know what that means if she's used to being shamed and not heard at home now?
As parents, we want our children to treat us with respect. I am all in favor of that. I just don't believe in teaching my daughter to respect me by being rude and disrespectful to her. And I don't understand why so many people seem to be convinced that speaking disrespectfully to children or doing physically demeaning things to them is an appropriate way to relate to them. I honestly think a lot of people simply haven't thought of it this way.
Let's always remember that our children are people too. Let's treat them with the same consideration we would treat another adult. This includes our babies too. Don't do something to your baby, toddler or older child that you wouldn't want done to you. After all, a child is so much more vulnerable than an adult, and just as deserving of our love and respect.
For those who wish to learn more about respectful parenting, here's a partial list of recommendations to get you started...
Parenting Decisions
Sears Parenting
Attachment Parenting International
Empathic Discipline
Biblical Parenting by Crystal Lutton
Parenting With Grace by Gregory Popcak
Kids, Parents and Power Struggles by Mary Kurcinka
The Baby Book by Dr. William Sears
posted by Beautiful Belgian Babe | 5:25 PM
2 Comments:
When my kids were babies, we always picked them up when they cried. We were warned about spoiling them, but can you really spoil a baby?
As for spanking, I slapped my son's hand once when he was two. I was on the phone and wouldn't get off fast enough to read him a story so he hit me with his book. Without thinking, I slapped his hand. He let out a howl like you wouldn't believe.
When it came to getting the kids to sleep when they didn't want to, we found a few tunes from the Dirty Dozen Brass Band did the trick. Nothing like some nice New Orleas marching music to relax a tired baby.
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