I have spent the last week with two toddlers. My children are adults, so I had forgotten what it’s like to spend time with children.  At the age of four and two the world is very small and immediate.  It’s a simple concept life.  However it’s at this age when the foundation has to be built. Good and bad have ripples. Ripples start small and become bigger. So it’s very imperative when they are young to teach the right from wrong.  What we instill now will get stronger and bigger as they grow.

 

Each interaction is a negotiation. They push and fight to move the line every time, yet as parents and elders we must hold fast and true. Punishment is not a negotiation tactic.  However appeasement is also not a solution.  Too many parents want the easy way and appease with treats.

 

I had no idea what my parenting method was, until I came to spend time with these toddlers.  Since I would never spank them or hit them ever, the threat to do so is useless.  I also didn’t believe in rewards which aren’t earned. So I was not going to stoop to bribery.  What I ended up doing was what I had done with my kids out of instinct which now twenty years removed I can see is a method. I treated them as equals and gave them the consequences and choices and it was they who chose what would happen.

example:

The youngest was always hunting candy.  So I would lay out the reward requirements, which were a long list of things which needed to be done. We are going to finish breakfast, brush our teeth, get dressed, put on our jackets and get in the car for daycare. If we are able to accomplish this then when we come home from day care we can have our treat.  Now as the morning would wear on, being kids they had to push and run around and avoid whatever they wanted to avoid.  I just had to remind them of the list.  I would always say:  ” it’s OK you don’t need to brush your teeth, no you don’t have to wear socks. It’s up to you. ” Of course there will not be rewards if we choose not to do what is asked.  They would take their time, and I didn’t have to yell or threaten, I just went about my routine before they would come and say OK I am going to brush my teeth.  At this point I would be the contrarian and say no you don’t have too.  Then being children they would insist.  The days were spent with me laying down the rules and options and they deciding the path. It’s human nature to choose the beneficial path.  It’s not my job to insist on the path, but to guide them to it.  Thus when they choose not to do what I wanted, I had to accept it and continue.  So if they didn’t wear socks to school, no problem.  Lets go to school without socks.  Both children tested me a few times to realize I would not sway nor cajole.  So all of sudden everything was up for negotiations.  I enjoy negotiations.  I had forgotten how much fun it was to manipulate my children into the right choices. When we were in public I did not get scared by the threat of temper tantrums and they could sense I was not going to be moved by them screaming.  So they didn’t.  Yet I see them do it to their parents.  Another sad reality of humanity.  We tend to treat strangers better than family. We behave better in front of strangers.

 

Why is the brown in me giving childcare lessons?  Because the brown in me realized how dealing with children should be mandatory for leaders of the world.  I bet not one leader of the world has been a stay at home parent.  So they have missed out on the experience I believe is mandatory to lead humans.  Be the parent.  Don’t try to be my friend.  Punishment and fear mongering don’t work.  Set the boundaries, spell out the options and stay true.  Reward when deserved, and set consequences for the wrongs which will happen.  The most important thing about being the parent, regardless of the day you have had, it ends with love and hugs and kisses.  Reinforce always the good and the goal. Humanity.  Our leaders have no idea what leadership is, our books on leadership are all skewed.  They are written by people who are incubating the worst in us.  Setting goals and then trying to reach them at all costs.  Good parents create good children and so on and so on. Good parents as leaders of the world will create good societies and so on.

 

 

 

They say the young will save us. The future belongs to the youth.  NO it doesn’t.  The future is ours to write.  We teach the young. The saviors are going to be us parents.  We must change how we raise our kids. We must give them the ability to see rights and wrongs and to understand the consequences of our actions.  Strict discipline or lax parenting are not working.   The world is caught up in cycle of leaders who are all flawed. They either want to be our friend or they want to be authoritarian. They bribe us and try not to let us know what the consequences are going to be.  A stay home parent will never choose to harm their child. They will protect them, want the best for them, and help them when needed till their dying day.  They have laid the biggest foundation for our society, yet we seem to be trying to move away from the model of a stay at home parent.  The brown in me realizes today, the world is not better and will never be better until we raise children with strong foundations.  Which is the bigger investment in life? Children or ….?  And before some feminist goes berserk, I am not picking the sex of the stay at home parent.  The brown in me, stayed home for 20 years with my children. 

 

*In all fairness, not all of us are lucky to have the option of staying at home, but this is just about creating leaders.

Source: ItsTheBrownInMe