Teach Kids Unhappiness Is Part Of Life
Q. On a recent radio talk show, you said today’s parents make problems for both themselves and their children by trying to be friends with them. I have a 3-year-old daughter, and I fail to see a problem with us being friends. Please explain yourself.
A. It’s interesting to note that until fairly recently, no American parent would have asked such a question. Even today, the number of parents in other countries who would ask it probably number less than the population of Des Moines, Iowa. In both cases, the answer was and is self-evident. So, the more pertinent question becomes, “Why is the answer no longer self-evident to so many American parents?”
Beginning about 30 years ago, professional parenting “experts” began promoting the idea that the parent-child relationship should be “democratic.” The traditional exercise of parental authority, said these experts, was psychologically damaging.
To remedy this historical “abuse,” parents were encouraged to “share power” with their children, let them participate in family decision-making and negotiate parent-child conflict. All of these nouveau prescriptions presumed a fundamental state of equality between parent and child.
For the first time in the history of any culture, the idea that parents should strive to form “wonderful” relationships with their children took root and began to grow.
In not-so-very-long-ago times, the typical parent certainly did not want a “horrible” relationship with his or her children; however, he or she made no effort to have a “wonderful” relationship either. Proper parenting, it was understood, involved teaching children to delay gratification, accept “no,” accept that there is always a price to be paid for misbehavior and other realities that children have difficulty accepting - realities that, in other words, make children unhappy to various degrees and for various terms.
Loving children and being willing to let them experience unhappiness is not incompatible. However, the parent who wants to have a “wonderful relationship” with a child is going to be reluctant to let the child experience unhappiness. Why? Because when children experience the above realities, they become unhappy with not just the realities, but also with those who dispense them.
The parent who is trying to be a friend wants the child in question to have positive feelings toward him/her. That parent, therefore, has a self-interest in protecting the child from unhappiness.
In so doing, the parent inadvertently inhibits emotional maturity. (It goes without saying that parents do, indeed, need to protect a child from certain sources of unhappiness. At issue here is the parent who prevents unhappiness almost indiscriminately.)
Ironically, the parent who is indiscriminate when it comes to buffering a child’s unhappiness today is guaranteeing the child will experience it in even more devastating form at some future time.
Furthermore, because the child in question is prevented from growing up, the following is a given: The parent who tries to be a friend to his/her child today still will be trying to resolve parenting issues when that child is old enough to become a true friend.
For the sake of children, I truly hope that is explanation enough.
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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Rosemond The Charlotte Observer