There were a couple little interactions between my two youngest daughters that happened this afternoon that I thought were very revealing of human nature.
In the first, the youngest found a chess medallion that belonged to her older brother. "He won a medal for chess?" the youngest asked, excited, because she's getting interested in chess a bit.
"Not really," the older one replied. "We both got them. They're just pity prizes. Everyone who played got them."
Pity prizes. The term and my daughter's tone said it all. These kinds of "trophies" and "awards" are ridiculously common now, and they don't do anything for the kids' self-esteem (as if that were important). If anything, they're reminders of failure: "You got this because you didn't win." The kids realize this. Don't the adults think the kids realize this? Adults who come up with these idiotic "participation awards," I ask you: exactly how stupid do you think these kids are? It's pretty damn insulting that you expect them to be pleased by receiving these.
In the second interaction, we'd just gotten out the Christmas advent calendar: It's a little wooden Christmas tree with 24 drawers. Each drawer has a little ornament, and each day from Dec. 1 through Dec. 24 you're supposed to take the next ornament out of its drawer and hang it on the tree.
The youngest asserted that she wanted to hang all the ornaments right now. Her older sister was adamant that the ornaments must be hung once a day, because that's how it's supposed to be done!
"Rules! Pfft!" was pretty much the younger daughter's attitude. "I don't see a rulebook for it! There's no instructions! We can do it any way we want!"
"But that's not how it's supposed to be done!" The older sister tried to explain. One a day until Christmas.
The younger daughter showed no appreciation for the explanation. The existence of a set of codified expectations for how the advent calendar is supposed to work didn't impress her at all.
I took out a sheet of paper and wrote "ONE AT A TIME" on it in marker and set it down in front of the advent calendar. "See? Rules!" She thought that was pretty hilarious. I let her put all the ornaments on. She'll probably be more interested in putting them all away and putting them on one at a time later after she's had a chance to play with the tree for a while. Or not. As if I care. The real purpose of the tree is for the enjoyment of children: if the rules are a barrier to her enjoyment, of what use are the rules? There are plenty of times in her life when the rules must be followed. Freedom to ignore the rules is something kids also need, sometimes.
But it's interesting how two girls, raised in the same household, have very different attitudes toward rules. That interaction was characteristic of the two. The older (the fourth of five) is much more the type to like things very orderly, to think that there is a "Way Things Should Be Done." The younger isn't completely devoid of that instinct -- I think all people have it, but she is much more inclined to discard the rules when the rules get in her way. How much of that difference between the two is innate and how much due to differences in how we have parented them? My experience after five kids is that no two kids get parented exactly the same, even by the same parents at the same time. Your parenting and your interactions with your kids are influenced by their personalities, your age and experience, your life situation at the time (job, income, free time, mental health, etc.), and your natural relationship with the child, for better or worse.
No comments:
Post a Comment