Today there is a view that children should learn by experience, and that they will work out who they are on their own.
To a degree, this may be true. However, children need parenting to develop and lead healthy, industrious lives that contribute positively to society.
We need to parent our children
Children have DNA and they have personality all their own. However, they can’t learn to eat healthy food and live healthy lives without guidance.
Babies are born helpless. And it takes months before they can do anything on their own… they can’t hold up their heads or even roll over for some time, never mind eat, dress, or look after themselves.
In the physical realm, just as it takes time for a child to develop the motor skills to walk or to dress himself, so too, it takes even longer to develop communication skills or emotional understanding. This takes years!
And to learn social skills, healthy emotional expression, and to develop an independent identity takes even longer.
So, how do these skills develop best? Through parenting.
Biological or adoptive parenting
While certain inherent understandings may develop more easily within a biological family, it isn’t essential to be raised by biological parents. Indeed, many children who are adopted grow into adults who are happy, productive individuals.
But children who lack healthy parenting suffer greatly, and the odds of maturing well are stacked against them. It is much more difficult for children without parents to grow up to be healthy physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually.
So, I’m about parenting. I think parents need to step up to support their children as much as possible. While circumstances within households may limit time, quality parenting isn’t always a maximum of time, but it is a quality of time certainly.
Freedom to develop
Do our children need to experience freedom or control?
I’d say they need both: guidance and steering loosens as the child matures. They need freedom to make mistakes — because we all learn far more from our mistakes than from our successes, don’t we? Mistakes do need to be safe mistakes. A child can run into a road to learn their vulnerability, but if the experience kills or maims the child, that isn’t good is it? So, seriously, the balance between freedom and guidance needs to fit the level of maturity of the child.
Freedom: too much too early, a lack of boundaries — causes stress to a child, even trauma if there is too much freedom too soon.
Without any boundaries, a child is likely to feel unloved. When a parent constructs a healthy boundary and a consequence if it is ignored, the child will know he’s noticed and loved.
Just my thoughts:) What about yours?