Posted by Here is today’s question:
Could it be that caring for children is like scripting good drama?
To write good drama one is encouraged to create conflict.
One creates obstacles for the characters and allows the reader to witness the character as they unravel themselves from the problem. Will they free themselves or remain bound? Drama is conflict, tension, suspense, wonder.
When I remember, or I could say when I have a chance to remember, I practice observing my parenting, to reflect and learn from our 15-month-young daughter. It’s interesting to recognise that I yearn to protect her from and in fact prevent her from pain or struggle, especially if it’s a particular pain I loathe experiencing, but this in another chapter. It’s interesting catching myself wanting to complete a puzzle for her (to put the right shape in the right hole) or help her retrieve something desperately attractive (like her potty that she loves to push along the floor!) that’s out of reach. Am I being a thief? A thief of frustration, experience and learning? Should I be allowing (within reason of course) some degree of discomfort and simply watching as she struggles with the ‘obstacle’ rather than solving it prematurely whereby robbing her of the possible satisfaction of ‘success’.
It reminds me of a teachers’ staff meeting which focused on ‘who’s doing the learning?’ If you as a teacher, research and deliver, an abundance of captivating material on a studied subject to your students who sit static (or not, as the case may be) beyond you – who’s doing the learning?
Do we best support our kids by removing their struggle/obstacles/pain or by being there listening and watching for their rise or their fall?
P.S Three texts I’ve loved reading about parenting are:
1) The class booklet given to participants during a Calmbirth workshop
2) Dance with me in the Heart by Pennie Brownlee
3) Caring for infants with Respect by Magda Gerber
I think of this often. Part of me wishes my son would never know hardships. Another part of me remembers my mom telling us that certain things were better learned through experience, no matter how painful. She was right, of course. It doesn’t make me not want to intervene any less, but it makes it easier for me to talk myself through not intervening. The tools he gathers now will be the ones that help him through a lifetime’s worth of more complex struggles.
absolutely. i have been thinking more and more on it…when we learn to solve problems we are essentially learning how to survive.