Advice on children

[Alphastream]

Kids are people and people will believe what you tell them. The unfortunate truth is that most people seem to perfer lying to kids than tell them the truth about the world and everyone in it.

Try telling a kid:
"People hate people that are different because they feel threatened by others and only see the differances, rather than trying to talk to people and find the similarities they attack them and only see the differances."

I bet a lot of you think saying this to kids would be talking over thier heads; I disagree I think saying this to adults is talking over their heads.

It is surprising how people, particularly non-parents, fail to realize how much children can understand. Sometime I delight in turning to my daughter and saying "what do you think" and watching my friend's jaws drop when my kid expresses an opinion on what my friend clearly thought was over my 3-year-old's head. It also seems to me important to lay down foundations. Whether explaining religion, sexuality, or violence, the concepts will come out and they will grasp them one way or the other. It is generally better, experts say, to address the issues. At the same time, not everyone has your or my viewpoints. Half the country is opposed to gay marriage, if not 60%. That half may feel a lot more uncomfortable explaining the question than you or I.

Thinking on it, I think the thing is to be open with your kids. You don't have to get detailed, but kids are satisfied and gain an understanding if good solid info is provided. I had a friend that heard me use the term "vagina" with my kid. Later they said "I would never use that term. They'll hear that from me when they are 20!" I joked "Fine, just don't come tell me in a few years that your daughter ended up pregnant!" Both things are true - on one hand, a lack of information and repression can result in kids making poor choices; on the other, a parent has to feel comfortable with the approach they are taking. There isn't anything wrong with not using the term vagina, but there is a lot wrong with keeping kids in the dark about sexuality. Even saying "I'm uncomfortable with the topic, some people are, but hey, it's better to be comfortable. Ask me questions and I'll try to answer them" is a good start. And, of course, everything has to be age appropriate. (And note that for all our use of proper medical terms, my kid still ends up calling it 'peanut butter with jelly'. Go figure).

Teos

[Ezram]

It is surprising how people, particularly non-parents, fail to realize how much children can understand.

How so? Isn't it a given that most people believe parents have greater insight into how children work?

[Gentry]

A number of people do believe that parents have greater insight into their kids.  However, that's not a given.

Unfortunately, there's a difference between being a parent and actually parenting.  Anyone with a functional anatomy can be the former, but it takes a significant sense of commitment to be the latter.

Given that, it's entirely possible that other adults can be more dialed-in to what a child wants and needs than that child's parents.  I've taught some public school, and there's more than one other regular poster to these boards who is currently doing so, and I think we'd all agree that we've met kids who have parents that in turn haven't got any real idea what their kids are doing, thinking, or experiencing.     

[glimmerrat]

It is surprising how people, particularly non-parents, fail to realize how much children can understand.

How so? Isn't it a given that most people believe parents have greater insight into how children work?

I've been working in a High School for a long time now, and the little scumbags STILL surprise me on an almost weekly basis.

[Ezram]

What I meant was, it shouldn't seem surprising that non-parents aren't as perceptive towards the schemes of children.

[Gentry]

I disagree.  It should be surprising when non-parents have greater insight into a given child, working from the premise that parents should be paying some friggin' attention to their kids.  Parents who work to develop parenting skills and work to develop their relationship with their kids do have greater insight into their kids than others.  That's as it should be.  Unfortunately, "should be" ain't "is".

Part of what bugs me the most about the "it takes a village" propaganda is that it tends to let parents off the hook in terms of paying attention to their kids.  We parents can easily create a host of justifications for distancing ourselves from our kids, and chalk it up to the influence of "the village" (and not the cool Prisoner village), which allows us to feel good about being absentee fools.  And then when our kids do something foolish that, with diligence and proper communication habits, we could have helped them steer clear of, we shrug and say "well, they get to decide for themselves" and continue to skip merrily down the happy road of self-delusion.

It's sad, really.  And given how sad it is, it should absolutely surprise people when parents don't know what their kids are about as much as nearby non-parent adults do.

[Krensky]

Part of what bugs me the most about the "it takes a village" propaganda is that it tends to let parents off the hook in terms of paying attention to their kids.  We parents can easily create a host of justifications for distancing ourselves from our kids, and chalk it up to the influence of "the village" (and not the cool Prisoner village), which allows us to feel good about being absentee fools.  And then when our kids do something foolish that, with diligence and proper communication habits, we could have helped them steer clear of, we shrug and say "well, they get to decide for themselves" and continue to skip merrily down the happy road of self-delusion.

It's sad, really.  And given how sad it is, it should absolutely surprise people when parents don't know what their kids are about as much as nearby non-parent adults do.

Several societies function in a less nuclear family oriented fashion. Arguably children being raised collectively, albeit with some form of primary caregivers, is probably the biologic norm for homo sapiens. It certainly is for the other hominids. The issue is that we (primarily the US but the rest of the western descended centered world) are like always half-assing it. Even a wholly collective child rearing needs a very small number of central figures. The rest of society has an interest and responsibility to ensure that children are raised to be happy, healthy, productive and successful (remember the actual definitions of the first three are cultural here and the last one is biologic). What this means is, you see a kid bullying a smaller kid you stop it. Torturing animals, stop it. Stealing, stop it.

It's not either end of the "Takes a Village" - "They're my kids and I'll raise them as I see fit" spectrum that's the issue. It's both of them. Namely that the back and forth and compromises between them leaves our society (here I'm mainly going for the US as it's the one I can see most clearly) in a place where some (perhaps many) parents (and ofter forced by economics, but that's another rant) rely on the Village without acting as or providing the central figures needed and Village doesn't do anything because no one wants ot get involved or risk the trouble and conflict of running afoul of the '"Don't tell me how to raise my kid!" crowd.

Basically, somewhere along the line some idiots got the message of It Takes a Village that we all bear responsibility on some level for our societies' children wrong and interpreted it so that other people had that responsibility, not them.