Approach Changes As Child Grows

During a recent telephone interview, a journalist asked what I thought was the biggest mistake made by the average well-intentioned parent.

The question cuts to the heart of the problems many parents of this generation are experiencing with their children: a general unwillingness to comply with instructions, persistent testing of limits, an inability to take no for an answer, unrepentant disrespect, chronic whining and tantrums well beyond toddlerhood.

As I was trying to formulate a cogent answer, I thought of my 15-month-old grandson, Jack Henry Rosemond, and there it was! Although I’m fairly certain he understands at least five out of every 10 instructions given him, he complies with one out of 10, maybe. If he’s told not to do something, he immediately does it, and he’s beginning to throw tantrums when he doesn’t get his way.

Now, all this is typical of 15-month-olds, and for understandable reasons: to wit, they’re still too young to have developed even a semblance of tolerance for frustration, and they have every reason to believe their parents were put on the planet to wait on them hand and foot. Putting one’s child at the center of attention and “catering” is, in fact, a hallmark of parental responsibility and commitment during infancy and early toddlerhood. As a parent, you’re supposed to do that. For two years.

Then you’re supposed to stop catering and take your rightful place at the center of your child’s attention.

The problem is that many of today’s parents never turn the “tide” of their children’s lives. They do an absolutely wonderful job during the first two years, then, because they never shift gears, it all begins to fall apart. Long past their children’s toddlerhoods, one finds these parents still catering, still serving, still reinforcing their children’s self-centeredness. They don’t realize that the last 16 years of one’s active parenthood must be spent undoing what was done during the first two years. This undoing is key to the child’s discipline, socialization and emancipation.

Here are several facts: You cannot maintain a child at the center of your attention and expect, at the same time, that the child will pay sufficient attention to you. If your child doesn’t pay sufficient attention to you, discipline will forever be a problem, as will respect for legitimate authority figures. If your child isn’t able to divest of the self-centeredness you catered to during his first two years, then he can be neither successfully socialized or emancipated (even if he leaves home “on schedule”).

The well-intentioned mistake of treating a child as if he is forever a toddler is likely to result in an adult who still thinks he deserves to have his bread buttered on both sides, his cake and eat it, too, to get something for nothing. This describes, of course, someone who is an adult in years only, but will probably never attain emotional or spiritual adulthood.

Obviously, this bodes well for the individual, but multiplied by a factor of thousands, it bodes ill for our culture. In fact, it spells the essential end of the values and character traits that have traditionally defined the American Spirit: resourcefulness, a “never say die” attitude toward adversity, good neighborliness, a willingness to sacrifice self for the common good, a willingness to help those less fortunate, and a vital work ethic. For this reason, it is of paramount importance that today’s parents retrace their steps, recapture the essence of how they themselves were reared, and bring that essence into their children’s lives. Despite the demonizing mythology that post-1950s mental health professionals have spun concerning the traditional family and traditional child rearing, they were about as good as it’s ever going to get.

As my wife and I discovered - belatedly, but not too late - if you stop trying to be liked by your children while they are children, they will appreciate you that much more when they are adults. Prove it to yourselves.

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