Take Your Eyes Off Your Kids!

I agree. I teach my kids to entertain themselves early on. they are now 4 and 7. They do not need me to help them play

*claps*

Is there any way to hand this out to every mother in America? lol

GiGi.. I would say just keep refusing. “Sorry honey, it’s not TV watching time and I’m trying to read/check email/sweep/whatever. Find something to do.” I say it to my daughter when she dumps her dolls in my lap as I’m doing something, and she goes on her way.

I am pretty sure if you read Mom on the iPhone and its comments, you would find that article was actually about media distractions, not never taking your eyes off your kids.

@GiGi – I have a “random chore” jar – I just wrote a bunch of MY least favorite chores on popsicle sticks and put them in a can. When anyone says anything remotely close to “i’m bored” or any variation thereof – they are allowed the privilege of an odd job. WARNING! – backfire potential as I haven’t been able to dole them out near as often as I’d like!

@sarahj, there was a healthy dose of “Don’t take your eyes off your kids for a moment because you will miss so much!” The author professes to have meant to limit her critique to media distractions, but her disapproval of any time spent doing something other than watching one’s daughter twirl around in her poofy skirt at the playground was manifest. And the tone was unforgivably sanctimonious. If she were truly concerned about the influence of technology in our life, I think the article would have been much different (i.e. contained much less finger-wagging).

Agreed.

I forget where I heard this, but I try to practice it everyday: Don’t prepare the path for your child, prepare your child for the path.

@GiGiSeattle, I think that was about the age my parents, and teachers, and my husbands parents started introducing us to a wide variety of hobbies. (Knitting, sewing, weaving, beading, model building, bird watching, photography, etc.)

Of course his parents had a chore list a mile long that they were happy to pull out if he complained of boredom. My parents just kicked me out the door and told me to see if any of the girls about my age were free.

My youngest wouldn’t give me a moment to myself if I gave her the choice. She’s the clingy one in many ways of my kids, but once I get her going, she’s really independent. It’s just remembering to get her started.

My children know that I’m bored translates in Momspeak to I need you to give me a chore to do. Just like eww yuck at the dinner table translates to I’d like some more please. I do fight feeling guilty about making my children play on their own though. I really needed to see this here.

While I agree with the overall gist of this article, I truly do think iPhones are NOT the awesome, consequence-free, necessary-as-oxygen device that most of society makes it out to be.

When I was in college, I nannied for a 2-year-old boys whose parents constantly ignored him, even as I was walking out the door. He was so desperate for their attention that it broke my heart. They were always pushing him away, saying, “Let me read. Let me watch TV,” etc. I wanted to smack them and say, “Hello! He just wants to spend a minute with you!” There is a healthy balance.

Love this mom’s point. I’ve noticed the attitude as well. I consider the art of looking away a key parenting technique. One that should go back before the playground and I think has more benefits even than mentioned.

As a nervous wreck new mom who had absorbed too much of the never stop staring at your baby ethos. And the you are responsible for every bad thing ever… I could hardly handle my daughter learning to walk. So many falls. Every time she wobbled my gut jumped ahead to the red faced screaming that was sure to come. Then I realized that as important and precious as those early efforts to walk are, for her sake I had to quit watching. I had to find a way to distract myself.

There was nothing better for us than for me to be elbow deep in dishwater with my back turned while she tried out her walking. Yup she fell, and no I didn’t catch. But a little miracle happened. I couldn’t instantly rush to help. I had to carefully set down some wet delicate glass ware, lest I add broken glass to our list of problems. But my mind still rushed to help and noted that her beloved pacifier had fallen out (as it usually did). So I said simply “Oh, your pacifier fell out. Can you get it?” And low and behold the mental activity of attempting to fix her own problem instantly solved what would have taken me 5 minutes to sooth.

Now she is 2 and does need my help with all manner of things. But weather or not I think her capable of the task. I’ve started responding to most requests with “Okay. Just keep trying while I finish x.” Sometimes while I am finishing x, she accomplishes something neither of us thought her capable of.

*Adds Bonnie Overly to personal list of heroes*

@Crystal – While some parents I suppose may truly become addicted to iphones or other technology, what makes you think that the parents that you nannied for would pay attention to their child without these things? Some parents have no interest in spending time with their children. It happened long before modern technology. Technology is simply a different way to occupy time that you don’t want to spend with your kid.

@Amanda Matthews – Wow, anti-working parent much.

Did anyone else note that the mum in the I-Phone article, who I’m sure is very nice and all that, had as a sidebar comment:

‘I’m a mom – what’s your superpower?’

Now, really. That sort of sums up our problems as parents. Actually I’m a mum too, and I have no superpowers. I’m just an average person trying to keep it sort of together, and that hasn’t changed markedly since I had kids. Yes, I can, for instance, now hold one kid vomiting over the toilet while I sign another’s school note, but just as often I will yell at the other kid to hold his sister up while I do sign said note.

Can’t do it all, don’t want to do it all, won’t do it all. No superpowers here, thank you. Now if I could only write my freaking essay, instead of being distracted by all this much more interesting media, I might have a smidgen of time to devote to my ‘little darlings, the lights of my life’ when they get home from school today.

Or I might just go to the mall and get a hot chocolate instead 🙂

Why does questioning something mean I am against it?

All I did was ask a question and state facts. I use to work a 9 – 5 job; I barely got to see my kids because of it. It’s just a fact that I can not be in two places at once, and therefore if I am at work (at a job where I can not take my kids along), I can not be with my kids. If no one is home to watch the younger kids, they have to go somewhere else. And driving to that somewhere else to drop them off and pick them up means even more time out of the day that I can’t be with my kids. This is not anti-anyone or anything else, just what I have experienced in my life.

There’s a lot of hypocrites around the internet. “Technology is bad!” “Parents should get off the computer/tablet/phone/etc. and go spend time with their kids!” “Kids should get off the computer/tablet/phone/etc. and go play outside!” But how are they accessing the internet to post those messages? It’s not a psychic connection while they run around outside or watch their kids; they are on a computer/tablet/phone/etc. That exact same evil “media” they are at that moment protesting. Why do they expect other parents or kids to find something more fun than “media” when they themselves would rather look at “media”?

“Don’t prepare the path for your child, prepare your child for the path.”
@Scott: This is probably the single greatest parenting tip I have ever heard. Thank you for sharing this tidbit of wisdom!! It is really easy to get caught up in the world of ‘preparing the path for our children’ when we really, really should be doing it the other way around. Brilliant perspective!

P.S. Does anyone else remember when there was a distinct line between adult activities and child activities? My parents were great parents, and I remember being sent to the basement to play while the adults watched movies upstairs. This was the norm at my friends’ houses, too – if the adults were hanging out, drinking, playing cards, watching movies, talking about grown-up stuff, or whatever, we were sent into the other room and expected to entertain ourselves. We were allowed to come out for food, but that was about it. 🙂

Does this even happen anymore?

@GiGi I have an I’m bored jar for my kids. List every game and toy in her closet, every puzzle, and coloring book, crafts and other activities she can do on her own. Put them all in the jar. The rule with my kids is that if they pull something out they have to do it. They can’t decide after they pull it out that they don’t want to do that activity. Sometimes kids just need to get started playing by themselves before they remember “hey, I like doing puzzles” and they pull next one out to do too.

@Donna – you have a dinosaur museum in A. Samoa? Wow!

Finished the damn essay, about to go around and walk Catspaw’s cute but useless dog with her. Still vote for herbivores- much tastier in the long run :-)….

Forget it, Catspaw. Save yourself the stress – hubby will cook the dog any day you like, LOL!

1. As for the article at hand, yes, I completely agree. A lot of my friends on Facebook from university, etc., have had babies recently, and one in particular, who has a toddler and a preschooler, has become a total sanctimommy (love that expression). Everything she posts on Facebook is about healthy, organic food, the perils of eating anything out of a package, and how awesome her kids are, and what an awesome parent she is. She used to be a talented pianist with a wide range of interests, but that’s all gone now, because Her Kids Come First.

2. I have to disagree about forcing kids to eat food they hate, or teaching them that “some animals are meant to be eaten.” If my (hypothetical, future) child said “Eww, yuck,” at the dinner table, I’d say something like, “Don’t you mean no thank you?” and just leave it at that. As for “discouraging vegetarian tendencies” in kids, well, I’m vegan, so I’d make it a goal to raise a child who loves animals instead of eating them.

3. About the “I’m bored” thing, it’s fine to teach kids to entertain themselves, but please, make sure there’s actually something for them to do. When my brother and I were kids, a lot of the time, our parents would tell us that we couldn’t watch TV, because the noise disturbed them, and we “watched too much TV anyway,” we couldn’t do crafts, because it was “too messy,” we couldn’t go anywhere, not even to the park near our house, because it “wasn’t safe” (they were overprotective), and we couldn’t have friends over, because they’d “worked all week, and wanted a quiet weekend.” If we complained of being bored, we were labelled as whiny brats. I hated getting craft kits as Christmas or birthday gifts from out-of-town relatives, because I knew I’d never get to use them.

P.S., I know that at least one person is going to say, “Why didn’t you just go and read a book?” Well, we did. My brother and I loved to read when we were kids, but even that wore thin after a while.

hineata – LOL. It was a kid-made museum. The kindy and 1st grade kids had been studying dinosaurs all semester and made a “museum” that the rest of the school and parents were supposed to come tour as their semester-end project.

I had to send my proxy (a coworker who was pressed into picking Maya up at the last minute) to view the “museum.”

@Hineata–I’m sorry, my opinion still stands. Your stories of Snowball the goat’s antics are funny, but I can’t laugh at the idea of killing an animal, especially one who was chosen as a family pet, just because he’s annoying sometimes.

@Hineata–In that case, why didn’t your family just buy a lawn mower?

@Donna–When I said “lawn mower,” I meant the ride-on kind. Of course a push mower wouldn’t work on a farm.

@Donna – what fun parents!

@Emily – in eating the weeds, the goat will often consume the whole thing, or at least that’s how I remember it. So better than a lawnmower that way too.

“Besides missing out on whatever bliss is derived from watching him go down the same slide 97 times”…not to mention the similar bliss of the kid or kids saying “mommy watch this” or “mommy look at me” 97 times, most for things you’ve already seen 97 times.

I was at a hotel this weekend with a lovely pool, and sat near a mom whose two kids could not stop saying “Mom, check this out” every time they made a move in the water. Mom did make some noise about just wanting to sit on the lounge chair and enjoy her margerita, but there was no conviction behind it, and she spent the entire time “checking out” and wow-ing eveything her kids did. I so badly wanted to tell her she had another choice!

I was at a running club meeting last night. It’s for older elementary kids who track their mileage and train for a 5k. We were going over dismissal procedures and the director told us that those with a “W” next to their names were walkers so we were to dismiss them to walk home while others went to aftercare or were parent pick-up.

One of the mom volunteers went off on how she could not allow this (but the parents already gave their permission!) and it was incredibly unsafe. She insisted on someone walking them across the street even though most of these kids have done this independently for years. I had to stop her save-the-children rant and tell her the walkers were fine- they might just teach some of the other kids some running “street smarts” like crossing the street without getting hit by a car. Plus, the point of this running club was teaching healthy habits to our kids AND WALKING IS ONE OF THEM. Children can be let out of our sight and SUV’s and thrive. They’ve been doing it for centuries.

I so agree with this article. This, Lenore, may be the best thing you’ve ever posted.

My kids are almost 4 & 6, I started sending them outside, in a fenced-off area, when they were 2 & 4. Yes, I read while they’re playing. I also play with them. I take care of their needs, and otherwise do what I FEEL LIKE and don’t feel an ounce of guilt over it. They still love the heck out of me, and that love is returned and expressed on my end lots. But I don’t eat & breathe and drink them either.

Like the one lady said about her friend, She used to be a talented pianist with a wide range of interests, but that’s all gone now, because Her Kids Come First.. Exactly. That is the very thing I made a point to avoid happening to me.

I have a question that maybe some of you may can help me answer, including you, Lenore (or anyone).

My mother is coming to visit next week, from out of state. She can be, and often times is, very helpful. However, she also tends to think that when she’s here (she will be in a hotel) that everything is supposed to stop for her. We do what she wants, period. Basically, she tends to want to all but dictate EVERYTHING when she’s here. If I act silly chasing the kids in the store, she will want me to squelch that because she finds it immature. (Understand: I don’t allow my kids to run in the store being a nuisance, I do very well with the “stay close by me and calm yourself down” bit, but I also will chase them some as well, have fun with them.) I find this highly annoying, as I’m a 44 year old man, for one thing, although it does seem pretty common for people, when their parents visit, to somewhat edit their activities a little as they’re entertaining or what have you. Where do you draw the line between that versus that you have to be yourself?

Also, and probably more on-topic with this site, is this: she is, as many of you have said of your own parents, a former free-ranger with how she raised me turned helicopter with how she is with the grandchildren and, more importantly, with how she thinks we ought to be as parents. It goes beyond just her sometimes stating her opinion, at times she can get preachy and even nasty about it. So, if we were (say) at the park with the kids and I were reading a book or staring at an electronic device while shooing the kids onto the slides, she’s exactly the kind to be prone to saying “put that damn thing down and play with your kids!” In the past I’ve just gone along with it, after all she’s out of state and visits once every year or so for 4-5 days and then she’s gone, but I think maybe the time has come to basically say “I’m grown, and yes you’re my mother and these are your grandkids and yes you should have access to them, and yes you should be able to state your opinion WITH THE RIGHT TONE, but being judgmental and nasty is not okay, period, I need you to stop.”

After all, if a stranger said that to me, I’d light into them like a Christmas tree for it. I’m starting to think maybe she needs some of that, even if she is my mother.

What do you guys think? Any of you deal with such, and if so, how do you handle it?

LRH

An excellent post, and one area of parenting I have never had trouble with. People laugh when I said I had my second son to keep my first entertained, but I wasn’t kidding. They do together all the stuff I can’t stand as a parent. (pretend mostly) Nowadays they are 10 and 13 and tend to go over to other friends’ houses instead. That is fine with me. I will never be the “neighborhood mom” and I don’t want to be. I like the quiet of my house too much.

I’ve have plenty of “moments” with my kids growing up and I still do. I don’t need to stay for my son’s karate lessons 4 times a week like some moms do. I know what he does. I’d rather go shopping or read a book in the car.

Heh. We let my son play with the normal silverware knives at 2 and he has since he’s been about 1 and a half. Some family member’s still freak out a bit but I figure he might as well learn what hurts and what doesn’t with stuff that won’t send him to the emergency room. He knows that the knives in the block are the owchie knives. He also seems to have a reasonable respect for what can get him hurt which I think he gets mainly from letting him get hurt a bit.

And he can play on his own for sometimes up to 2 hours with lego’s and such. He gets lots of interaction at daycare and other times from us. It’s good for him to learn to do things on his own.

I’m also a karate mom. When I food shop I get asked where is your daughter?. When I say she is in karate I get asked why don’t I watch the class. She concentrates better without me and my 11 year daughter doesn’t need me every second to guide her activities.

The karate studio also sends email about the important events, belt tests, and cancelled days. I don’t need to hear those in person.

BMS, a suggestion that comes to mind is, when they do that, MAKE them do the chore. That’s the penalty for saying “I’m bored.” Then they stop saying it and the chores get done.

That might not work, depending on other factors, but it’s a thought!

A watched child becomes a bit of culture sludge in a petri dish. Terribly scientific living life as a science experiment. Learned behavior. There’s what you do when you’re watched, and then what you do when you aren’t.
Prisoners get watched in jail by guards.
Shoppers get watched in malls by security guards.
“Guardian” or “guard?”
Unwatched, life is an adventure. Watched – it’s just a sentence. Kids do a lot of hard time. Tried, convicted, and punished. (But exactly what is the crime committed?)
I always preferred being a benign warden, myself. Dreaming of freedom.
Kids dream of freedom. In the land of the free that’s supposed to be their birthright.
On the other hand…I can always watch you watch the watched whatcher who watches the watched. Life spent in a hall of mirrors.

I hear that “watch your child” at practice thing, too and it is just impractical. We only have two kids, but between them they are at approximately 20 hours of practice per week. How could I possibly watch 20 hours of practice and what would I or my kids be getting out of it? Same goes for getting to every meet or game. Having two very athletic kids my advice to new sports parents is don’t try to get to it all. First, you’ll be setting up unreasonable expectations for your kids. The first time you see a player really mess up at a game because “its the first time my dad/mom isn’t here” you’ll know what I mean. Secondly, you’re not going to want to do it at all if it takes over your life. I do try to watch one practice per every week or two, but during most evening practices I catch up on work, read, look at my phone :), go grocery shopping, go for a run myself, or sit in my car and stare out the window (my favorite). Also, the less you are there, the more you are encouraging your kid to advocate for himself on the team. (This is a great skill–for instance, if you want to pitch in Tuesday’s game, talk to the coach about why.) And there is WAY too much gossip and competition/jealousy among parents in some organizations. Why hang around that. Better to be polite but somewhat aloof. Sorry to go on and on, but this is a topic I have a lot of experience in!

It is ironic that we tell our kids that THEY can do anything….but we don’t allow that freedom for our parents! Or, at least the mothers. Fathers are supposed to go out and work and support the kids. Unless they are a single parent and then they are bashed and self bash for trying to do everything but not accomplishing it all too.

While I am a stay at home mom, and I really enjoy being so, I know a couple of moms who are NOT happy with that. They tried it, they hated it. But feel so guilty for going back to work. I tell them not to worry about it – a happy mom means a happy family!

@LRH–Have you ever thought about sending your kids and your mother off on their own outing while she visits, so they can have some “Grandma time,” and she can interact with them in the way that she sees fit? That might help her loosen the reins a bit when you’re out and about with you, her, and the kids together.

@LRH – same thing here, regarding the ‘free-range as kids, helicopter-the grandkids’ thing. And my mother lives less than an hour away, God bless her! Honestly, a mother is a mother – she’s probably acting out the ‘am I still needed’ thing. Have had to draw a few lines in the sand with regard to my mother, because we see her more often, but drew them in a nice way. In your case, just be her little boy for a few days a year, like Pentamom says.

Consider it your gift to karma, or some such. When you’re old you might want to boss your kids and grandkids around a bit too, LOL!

Also, if it really is that bad, you could write a movie script about it. Get some gorgeous bloke to portray you, and maybe Sally Field as the mum. You might even make money…:-)

It’s hard. My kids are partly special-needs (plenty of brains but social issues) but I have to let go of those apron strings, as they are 11 now. One right now is off to the convenience store half a mile away to buy gum, the other went for a walk in the woods. I’ve mentally got my nervous-mommy self tied up in the back of my head, incommunicado, and am reminding myself that it’s really good for them to be away from me.

I don’t mean to insist that Papilio agree with me, but the reason I don’t think that LRH’s mom “needs to hear this” is that I can’t really see what larger purpose is served by it. The mother-son relationship is unique, so if LRH can put up with it, it’s not like she needs to hear this to avoid being some kind of plague on society. And just as LRH is a grown man and doesn’t need to parented, his mom is a grown woman and doesn’t “need” to be taught how to behave except insofar as her behavior is really going to hurt other people.

So if her degree of meddling is not intolerable, my leaning is “You’ve only got one mom, you don’t see her often enough to make it a really big problem AND you don’t see her often enough to easily smooth over any hurt that may be caused.” When mom is gone, you might feel like putting up with this was worth it to keep mom close and not feeling alienated.

pentamom You make some very valid points, I don’t want to dismiss that, at all. Besides, my side-question really isn’t the relevant subject of this thread (although it SORT of is, as the parenting style it advocates is the style I advocate, and the articles like “dear Mom with an iPhone” are the very sorts of things my mother tends to say).

The issue is this–approval or at least ACCEPTANCE, and acknowledgement that–hey, I’m a grown man, and I shouldn’t be criticized for the choices I make. Understand, I believe a parent of a grown child should be able to express their opinion somewhat, but they have to be VERY CAREFUL with how they do so. You have to be very careful and realize that you are now talking to an ADULT, your child may ‘always be my little boy to me in my heart” but they shouldn’t be TREATED like one by blasting their lifestyle and their parenting style. You have to respect the boundary and the parental authority, even if you disapprove of it, so long as it’s not something like (say) sodomy or breaking of the bones on purpose (as “discipline”) that you’re observing.

I realize this will go for me, too, if you fast-forward 25-30 years or so. To wit: I am very against “attachment parenting” and co-sleeping etc, very strongly so. What if, say, my son adopts my beliefs but marries someone who wants to do attachment-parenting and co-sleeping and he goes along with it? How do I express my disapproval of it?

Answer–very carefully, if at all, especially around my son and his wife, or even just my son alone. If I give my opinion, I have to do so in a way that states I don’t agree with the choice, but at the same time I respect that they are the parents and they make the call. I cannot get caught up in “my son was raised to know better than to do that nonsense, it’s that pea-brained wife of his he married that’s corrupting his good sense.”

You see, my mother can get to be darn near that nasty at times, certainly when talking to me in private–in a few isolated cases, she’s even done that to my wife to her face. To wit: my wife sleeps later than me, and I’m a natural early riser. Thus, I am the one that sees our daughter off to school while she sleeps. In my mother’s mind, my wife (our girl’s mother) should get out of bed and spend time with our daughter before our daughter goes to school, rather than selfishly insist on sleeping late.

In one case sometime back, she even had the nerve–I am not kidding–to actually go into our bedroom and yell at her to get up. I am not kidding. In another case she told me & my wife (before our 2 current children were born) “the life you two are living is pure bullshit” and had my wife crying in her own house. I sent my mother home on the spot for that one.

Granted, most times now she doesn’t do that, but she can be bad about rattling on & on about how lazy and selfish she thinks that is.

Again, looking ahead 25-30 years, if my son & his wife do the attachment parenting and co-sleeping thing, I will be adamantly against it, and it’s fine that in a limited way I let it be known that I don’t agree with the practice, but I sure can’t be preachy about it to them, and sure not ugly, and I sure as heck better not be going into their room in the middle of the night “would you put that baby in its own room already” etc (the equivalent of what my mother did). Even in expressing my opinion, I have to do so very carefully and delicately else it goes from just letting them know what my position is and turns into preaching and being ugly, which is NOT okay I don’t care if I am my son’s father. It’s a violation of boundaries.

LRH

@Pentamom–I agree. The thing with watching kids at every practice, for every activity, is, not only is it counterproductive when kids show off for their parents, or parents try to intervene, but it also defeats part of the purpose of the exercise. When you send a school-aged child to, say, dance class (so, the child is past the age where these classes are labelled as “parent participation classes,”) then yes, the main purpose of the class is for the child to learn to dance, but the other, equally important component, is for the child to learn to be okay being without Mommy or Daddy for the duration of the dance lesson, and to learn to trust and respect the dance instructor as the adult in charge. If Junior gets accustomed to this routine, then it won’t be a shock when the dance instructor (instead of Mommy or Daddy) has to be the one to administer the Band-Aid or ice pack in the case of an injury; whereas a child whose parents always come along, but can’t attend one time, would probably have a total meltdown if the dance instructor had to be the one to perform first aid on him or her in the absence of the parents. Also, under normal circumstances, obeying non-parent, third-party adults is an important skill for kids to have, so they don’t cause trouble with school teachers, babysitters, camp counsellors, etc.

I just had an upsetting experience directly related to this topic. I work at a boarding school, and once a year we have a day set aside as campus clean-up day. We do the kinds of tasks that need to be done but are constantly set aside, reorganize all the common areas, get into attics and basements, etc. Then we have a community brunch.

The tradition began a few years ago under the influence of a few science teachers. We have a pond on campus that had become totally overgrown and horrid – you could hardly tell there was a pond there, the water was fetid, and nothing lived there. Over the summer, one science teacher began, on his own time, cutting away at the trees with an axe – soon, the school saw the potential and brought in machinery and such.

At the same time, we received bad news from the family of one of our special graduates – he had gone off to his first-choice college, and while there, met a girl, broken up with her, and killed himself. I went with the Headmaster to the memorial service, and they told us that the wanted to make a memorial at the school – of the 5 schools he had attended, we were the only one he talked of fondly, he had stayed with us the longest – almost a full year – and had graduated from our school.

So, we decided to have this clean-up day, focusing on the pond, and make the pond a memorial thinking-place, together with a stone bench and one of those open-book statues.

Simultaneously, another science teacher noticed that we had sugar maples all over campus, and worked out a project to do with all the students of tapping them for sap and boiling syrup.

So, all these ideas came together with clean-up day followed by pancakes with our own school-made maple syrup. For years now, students have always seen this as a special day, a tradition they look forward to, and a source of pride.

Today, every group seemed to have that except mine. My group of 4 – we cleaned the storage attic and then the recreation hall – set out with an attitude of “we can’t believe we pay to come here and they make us work.” If you’re looking to be unhappy, of course, you will be. All but one of them were difficult students – bright, unwilling to open themselves and express interests or likes and dislikes, always trying to figure out the minimum they can do and learn to get through. Their approach to the work was the same – an attempt to figure out how to pass the time with the minimum amount of work.

What these 4 had in common was that, with perhaps a few exceptions, they were the most privileged and had the most parental involvement. Their parents called to inquire about their grades weekly (and parents get a full written report each week.) One wants to transfer to a school with less support – his parents said no, he asked some more, and they said yes, then gave him the forms to fill out and get recommendations – he didn’t do it, so the mother emailed me for a recommendation. Yes, a student who wants to escape from us sat with me daily for 20-30 minutes and couldn’t be bothered to ask me for a letter, then his mother – who doesn’t want him to transfer – had to do it for him.

Anyway, my point is, the parental involvement did not seem to have been good for these students. The remarks they made – “We don’t pay to have to do things” “When I’m older, I’m not going to clean, I’m going to hire people to clean, so why do I need to know how?” showed a complete helplessness, and a lack of shame in that helplessness. I asked them – don’t you want to feel proud when people look at this room and know you cleaned it – instead of them looking and not believing that you cleaned it since it looks unchanged? They clearly couldn’t care less. It’s a peculiar thing to see in a young person – and can only, I think, result from parents who do everything for their kids.

I also think it’s something we as a school need to get better at fixing and recognizing. We’ve been dealing with their academic issues one at a time, instead of thinking about them connecting in this way. School work can help if it gives students the experience to do something worthwhile and take pride in the result, instead of only doing things because some taskmaster (me, in this case) demands that it be done.

Donna The sort of “annoying” things I’m referring to is where, if I were to let my child play without me hovering over them, she would all but yell “go play with your damn child already, what kind of parent are you!” with a sort of “Dr Laura” tone if you know what I mean, where she has “hissed” it. She may be my mother, but she needs to respect that I am that child’s father, not her, and that she is my mother and the child’ grandmother doesn’t make it okay to all but boss me around like I’m 12.

Then there’s the time she bought our girl shoes which tied, and when I told her that I appreciated that but that our girl typically wears velcro and I prefer that because the hassle of shoestrings annoys me, she hissed again “that’s so lazy, using VELCRO shoes!!” (Heck, if they were easier to find in the store, I’d get velcro shoes for myself.)

Note: she is not always like that, but she is often-times, and I think that it is wrong. The last time she was here, right before we left her hotel, she said to my wife “get off your ass and help him out around the house once in a while.” I let it go, because the trip was almost over, but I was not pleased. I thought about it from my angle: if someone in her family said something like that to me, and with that sort of “hissing” tone to it, I’d told them real quick-like where to shove it. I wish my wife had done so, she’s just too timid to stand up for herself, had she done so I’d fallen in love with her all over again.

My wife, I think, has a sort of “panic attack” thing going on, when she heard my mother was going to be here, she immediately became all jittery and nervous and going on all day long about it. On one hand, my wife is responsible for her own response to things, but then again, there is no one else, except maybe CPS, that elicits that sort of nervousness in her. Everyone else, be it mutual friends of ours, members of her family, or for that matter friends of mine or members of MY family, elicits no such response from her, because all have gone out of their way to be accepting of her just as she is, and respectful of the boundary as her being the wife.

The thing I would be okay with “going along with” for 4-5 days would be going places and doing she likes for those days, even if it’s things I don’t really find fun, for her sake. That’s fine, but respect that I’m grown and the parent. It may be hard to be the parent of a 44 year-old, but that doesn’t make it okay to be ugly and snappy.

As for the future scenario–yes I would, in a GENTLE way, let my opinion be known about what I think of attachment parenting, but only in a GENTLE way, because I think the younger generation is supposed to respect the older one and listen to their words of wisdom and ponder them. (That also explains why I haven’t shut my mother out, because sometimes she serves that role well, managing to suppress the “hissy” and ugly tone, and so I’m able to show respect easily.) Even then, if I sensed that my doing so would cause problems for them much as what I’m talking about in the present tense, I’d zip my lips, I’d bite my tongue. I would save my “rants” for online forums under a username or friends my own age who don’t know my children, I would sure not be reading the riot act or have a “hissing” tone towards my son and his in-law in that scenario. I sure hope I don’t do that. I have to respect that those decisions are THEIRS to make, not mine, no matter what I think of them.

LRH

LRH — yes, when it’s issues of outright nastiness and berating your wife, that should be addressed. But I think you need to understand that the problem is not that she has different ideas about parenting your kids than you do and expresses them, it’s the WAY she does it. Parents of adults don’t need to be made to butt out of their kids’ lives and cease to have opinions or express them, but all adults need to treat each other with respect and observe boundaries. That’s where you draw the line — where she’s unkind and speaks without respect to you or your wife or children, not where she tells you you’re wrong. You don’t have to listen to her advice, but you don’t have the right not to get told you’re wrong, by a parent or by anyone else. My opinion is worth what you’re paying for it, I guess, but in my opinion that distinction is important.

PS. This isn’t too say you shouldn’t spend good quality time with your child. That is important too and sadly I’ve seen the other extreme as well. It should be a balance.

@LRH That basically describes my mother-in-law actually I think mine might be worse.

How do I deal? Okay this is going to sound really bad to those who don’t deal with it but I think those who do will get it. We deal with it with a lot of lying, doing things behind her back, and telling her yes and then just doing what we want. If its a minor thing we might just do it. Similar to your mom she doesn’t live close to us and we only see her probably less the one week per year.

Also do something nice for your wife afterwards. Something relaxing.

LRH–I take back what I said about sending your kids off on a “Grandma outing” with your mother, because your mother sounds completely bat-crap crazy. In fact, if you hate having her visit so much, why don’t you maybe stop inviting her, and do maybe a weekly or biweekly “Skype visit” instead?

This made me go “Yes! Yes! Yes”.

There is an online local news forum I sometimes frequent and if you dare ask any questions like “Is there a playground anywhere in the area where parents can have a decent cup of coffee nearby while the kids play” are met with a barrage of insults which can be summarised as “If you weren’t prepared to become a martyr and practically die for your kids every day, you shouldn’t have had any”. But I bet they are the same people who whine about the current generation of kids growing up thinking the world revolves around them and behave like spoilt brats. Go figure.

@LRH–If you really want Velcro shoes for yourself, I found some here:

http://www.shoeme.ca/products/wolverine-mens-rambler-velcro?gclid=CNyvjLG8n7YCFetAMgodc3QAQA

EMILY I really appreciate the link about the Velcro shoes. Assuming they ship to the US from Canada for a decent rate, I’m getting them. I’m used to cheap shoes and they’re $90, but if they last longer and provide better support, what the hey.

Maybe I’ll even see if they have any that are my kids’ size and tell my mother if she wants to buy them nicer shoes for school etc to get those, ha ha.

LRG
AGPtek TP10V Android 4.0 Tablet

@LRH–I just found a page full of cheaper Velcro shoes for adults, but it’s a Canadian page too:

http://www.nextag.com/men%26%2339%3Bs-velcro-shoes/stores-html

@ECB, I think it’s a matter of not *always* entertaining them. We all feel bored sometimes, and it’s not generally a matter of not being able to think of something that needs to be done. I will suggest chores in response to whining about being bored. If my daughter tells me calmly without whining that she’s bored, and asks me to play a game, I might do so, or I might say “not right now” and suggest that she go outside and play, write a story, do a craft, etc. I might even tell her what *I* am planning to do and ask if she’d like to join me. Or I might say “I know, I’m bored too… let’s DO something today” and we can think of a fun outing together. It’s the whining that deserves chores as a response.
That, or if she’s bored and there are chores that really need to be done, that she should have completed earlier…

@Emily: you might try setting a positively-framed policy, rather than saying they can’t sit in. We do that with kids a lot, but forget that even adults respond better to being told what they CAN do than what they CAN’T. I have to admit, music lessons are the activity I’m *least* likely to drop my daughter off at. I’ve tried, and occasionally managed to run a quick errand, but it’s really not possible to do anything productive. A 3 hour play rehearsal, yes. 30 minute voice lesson, no. So I stay. Her teacher has a waiting area set up, with comfortable chairs, a stack of magazines, wifi, and generally just a pleasant environment. It never occurred to me to ask if I could watch, because I was told right off the bat that I could sit there while I was waiting. Now, it IS nice that I can sometimes hear what’s going on in the studio, and I do listen sometimes. Usually, though, I’m on my iPhone, laptop, or I bring a book.

Thanks to everyone for answering my question. I pretty much figured if a kid is whining for you to spend time with him, without even trying to find something to do on his own, then it was OK to break out the chores. It’s just that some of the posts made it sound like kids shouldn’t be bored. Or at the very least, they should keep any feelings of boredom a deep dark secret. I don’t mean in the sense that they should be entertained every minute of the day. I mean in the sense that experiencing boredom is considered some sort of moral defect that parents need to discipline.

>>The sense that experiencing boredom is considered some sort of moral defect that parents need to discipline.<<

That's EXACTLY how my parents felt!!! I don't really get bored now, but I'm not sure if that's because of their "excellent parenting," or because my entertainment options now are more varied than "read a book," or "clean your room." Now, I also have the option to play the clarinet or the piano, watch TV, draw, make something, surf the Internet, or go somewhere if I want to–pretty much anywhere I want to go.

@Emily – I like your style. Midge’s violin teacher was Malaysian Chinese, and she always wanted us parents in the lesson taking notes so we could help the kids at home. Not so bad, ended up making friends with her and several of the other parents, so it became another social outlet I suppose, but me, I would have prefered reading my book outside in the car, LOL!

So, parent to teacher, make those lessons as private as you like 🙂

@Donna – in three words, peace and quiet :-).’Specially back when I spent my weeks with other peoples’ toddlers. But each to their own. Milder weather where we are too, probably wouldn’t want to stay in the car if it was boiling hot or snowing, either, LOL! Don’t think it’s helicoptering, just personally prefer not to watch.

That said, the girls have just started cheerleading, and am turning up early to see them do a bit of that, because it’s quite fascinating – so not like the movies. Midge, for example, is totally unco-ordinated, but she doesn’t have to be for what they have her doing – basically, because she’s little, she just gets tossed. Find myself sitting there with my stomach in my mouth, because they keep dropping/nearly dropping her, but she’s having fun doing what’s effectively gymnastics without needing gymnastics skills of her own 🙂

So, am personally finding some activities are worth watching, at least for now….

Emily, I’d suggest that you do the “positive” thing first, as in, “I think you’d be more comfortable sitting over here.” If a parent insists on sitting in and meddling, then I think it’s just time (if you can possibly afford to risk losing a student) to phone the parent later and inform her that you cannot continue teaching her child unless you have the child’s full attention and complete control over the lesson time, which is not possible with a parent present in the actual studio. Unless the child is focused and is taking direction only from you during lesson time, you do not feel you can provide appropriate instruction. All this can be said very nicely and is not the least bit unkind — it is purely phrased in terms of what is required to teach effectively, not at all aimed toward a personal desire not to have that particular person around.

@Pentamom–One of the nice things about the clarinet is the fact that you don’t get any really young students, because there are certain “growth milestones” a young person has to reach before beginning. A person beginning the clarinet must have adequate hand strength to hold one (of course), big enough fingertips to cover the holes, and their adult teeth must be grown in, because when you play the clarinet, you have to rest your front teeth on the mouthpiece. So, I’ve never had a student young enough for parents to feel like they need to stay and hover for “safety” reasons, or because the child gets anxious away from his or her parents; it’s more “Tiger Mom” behaviour that I don’t want to see. It didn’t even occur to me to come up with that rule until I met my young colleague in wind ensemble whose mother acted as a “musical micromanager,” and as I’ve said, I’ve never had to enforce it, but honestly, if it came up, and the parent threatened to pull their child from studying with me if they couldn’t watch their every move during lessons, I still wouldn’t let them bully me into changing my teaching style, because I wouldn’t want to be responsible for a young person having an unpleasant experience with music.

I’ve also seen a fair bit of craziness like that during rehearsals for my steel pan drum group that I joined about six weeks ago. For example, there’s the twelve-year-old whose mother requires her to stay in constant cell phone contact during rehearsals (by texting), and the FIFTEEN-year-old who had to quit the group because her parents won’t let her out of their sight, and didn’t feel like coming to rehearsals anymore. I had a bit of a time trying to explain to the twelve-year-old why it was rude to use a cell phone during a group activity, but she said that her mom wouldn’t let her turn off this “electronic leash” regardless. It’s interesting, because the drumming group is for all ages–kids, teens, and all ages of (un-background-checked!!!) adults participate together, and our youngest member is seven years old, our teacher is probably somewhere in his 50’s or 60’s, and the rest of the group is a mixed bag of kids, adolescents, twenty-and-thirty-somethings, and middle-agers. But, even though I’m only 28, it seems like a lot of the rules have changed–the standards of “safety” have gone way up, and rules of etiquette that were drilled into my head even in high school and university (like, no cell phones at rehearsal), don’t seem to exist anymore. I had a word with the teacher about the phones, and he agreed, but I don’t think anything is going to come of it. I’ve also seen young teenagers in yoga class whose parents require them to keep their cell phones on, which seems excessive too–this is at the YMCA, in a room full of responsible adults, with an instructor who’s trained in First Aid, so I don’t get the need for constant parent-to-child contact.

Janika, actually, children in those situations tend to suffer from forced maturity too quickly. They cope with practical matters very well, but their emotional maturity tends to be less healthy, due to not having developed in a natural way. This applies more to kids who have something like alcoholic or mentally ill parents or lose a parent and do not receive good support thereafter — it’s not so much the case with kids who face challenges like having to work hard to overcome poverty or get an education, absent those other issues. Bad parents aren’t really good parents in the long run — there are just some side benefits to go with the tragedy.

Love this!