Parenting fuss

Again, a new wave of books about how to raise you kids.  It all mostly began with Dr. Spock, who did a pretty good job. Since then there have been thousands, some have been decent, but most have been terrible.  Many have been very harmful. Many are really no more than political polemics created to develop true believers.

But now we are living in a time when the pressure on kids to grow-up quickly and learn the right skills is greatly magnified.  If you don't have a strong, sophisticated education it will be difficult to find a job or to create one for yourself.  Robots now do the kind of work that kept millions of people employed thirty years ago. Kids have to not only learn how to do things well, they have to do things better than others.  Harvard and MIT have only so many seats each year. Be strict, be tough, teach your kids to focus, to learn, to succeed and achieve. Fun will come for the satisfaction of achievement, play will come at 55.

Predictably, in three to five years there will be another huge pile of books written that will refute the ones coming out today.  Any parenting style that goes to any extreme may work for some kids, but will fail for most.  Every kid is different, every parent is different, every family is different and every time period is different. 

Parenting is wonderful, and should be the most engaging and productive thing that anyone does with his or her life.  But it involves a lot of time and a very delicate balancing act:

Independence but with structure
Fun and Happy, yet internalized delay of gratification
Achievement through pleasure, achievement through work
Intellectual development; emotional intelligence
Firm but Fair
Organized sports, or disorganized play
Discipline yet with Emotional self-regulation!
Learn the rules, but learn to think for yourself.
Solve problems traditionally, solve problems creatively
Play, roam, waste time, watch TV, make-up games, be a pain in the ass

A parent has to slowly instill all of these things in a smiling, running, teasing, messy, fussy, naturally playful totally innocent child.  I remember when my kids were young that as soon as I could determine out how much freedom and independence they could handle, they had grown and changed and their stage of life was different, the challenges they faced were different and I had to begin all over again.

I know that it is more difficult today with so much information, so much stimulation, so many more ways of measuring, and what seems to be much less time.

The one basic rule:  Pay Attention!!!

What seems to have improved is that Grand parenting is much easier and a great deal of fun.