The lessons of life, from every day encounters, from parent-children interactions in the local parks, translated…
My best friend’s child is turning three recently, she’d, come to me, stressed out, asking, how to, teach her young the rules. On the one side, she wants him to be happy and be himself, worried, that by enforcing the rules, will kill his energies and curiosity; but on the other hand, she’d worried, that too much respect will cause her son to get spoiled, and he would become too egotistical, and become, stubborn, and does what he pleased, to become, selfish.
As I’d heard her worries, I’d thought on it, and told her of something that’s happened before.
I remember it was when my daughter was only a year old, in my history of raising up my young, there was the “war claims of slides”. Back then, all of us mothers started, arguing on whether or not the child should sit facing the front, to slide down, or, come down the slides with their backs, and, the group of us mothers, started, yelling and screaming, debating the matter until all our faces are, red: those who’d insisted of the “front slide” methods, believed that playing on the slides should BE like driving, following the rules of traffic, otherwise, there may be a huge crash as a result, and how will the games continue to get played? But those who stressed the “against the current” methods, they’d stated, that sliding the slide downward, it’s, binding the mind, if the kids believed, that there’s, only ONE set of rule that CAN be, applied to every game they play, how will they be able to, break their own, usual way of thinking? Both sides had valid claims, and they refused to compromise, the words of angers, the accusations get thrown around, and during that time, there were the blood, guts, and gory too, that spilled out onto the online discussion boards, and we can’t see the light.
illustration from UDN.com
“And what about you? Which side are YOU on?”, as my friend heard up to here, she’d asked me.
“Me? I’m, a sort of ‘in-between’!”
Later on, as I took my daughter to the park, if there’s no one else there, I’d, encouraged her to slide however way she wanted to. but once children from other families started coming in I’d reminded her, there’s just NOT us here, we need to, consider others’ perspectives now, and we need to, get along, with everybody else who was there.
After this, I’d, turned the corner, reminded my best friend, “So, on teaching the children, like how I took my young daughter to play on the slides in the parks, you just need to guide him, ‘when you are being you, DO learn to consider other children’s perspectives too’, then, you wouldn’t need to worry, that your child was suppressing himself too much, or too self-centered.”
Thinking back, my advice to my friend, reflected John Mill’s “The true freedom only comes, as we don’t, obstruct someone else’s freedom first”. I’d not thought, that the civic lessons, can be applied, to childrearing, it seems, that the political science theories not only help us toward the right direction, it can become a sort of a guideline to childrearing too!
children playing on the slides at a park like this…
So this, is the mother’s methods to allowing her daughter to be, wild and FREE, at the same time, being, considerate of others, and by imploring these methods to training her young, she’d, allowed her child to exercise her creative thought (coming up of innovative ways to play with the things in the parks?) and, the importance to following the rules when she’s in a group too.