Children Don't Break!
Posted: Thursday, February 14, 2008
by Laura Wellington
The Giddy Gander Company LLC
Sometimes I wonder if today's parents aren't their own worst enemies when it comes to raising their children in this richly endowed medical and psychological environment we've grown accustomed to. It seems that parents weigh every moment of their children's lives with the same scales, comparing a bumped knee to a broken collarbone and calling it even. Cranky friends are never just cranky because of lack of sleep from the night before. There's always a much larger reason. And Ritalin seems to have become the prescription of choice these days for lack of a better or easier answer. Current parent ideology trends towards the "complicated" rather than the "simple" we once knew, and I am not certain we are doing our children a favor in the exchange.
The lost art of picking your child up, brushing him off, and sending him on his way with little more than a tear, if the scenario warrants it, is, to me, a tragedy. Life is enormous enough without highlighting every incident that comes to pass. Doing so doesn't make our children any stronger or more equip to handle the "every day" nor does it increase our value as parents in their lives. The only thing this behavior does is ensure a magnified sense of existence beyond the healthy, translating into the raising of hypersensitive children and adults.
Agreeably, one of our jobs as parents is to protect our children but that doesn't always mean applying a tourniquet where a band-aid will do. This is the reason the world has discovered both. Yes, "being there" for your children is imperative but so is providing children with realistic parameters in which to properly consider situations as well as gauge reactions.
After all, teaching your children to see life as it truly is, is, in itself, its own defense. Not doing so, literally confines children to a lifetime of confusion, self doubt, and limitation – a life much less desirable than the one he could have.
Keep this in mind the next time your child burns his tongue and you take him to the hospital! No doubt, they will tend to his wound but realize that they will be doing so over and over again for the rest of his life – a sad state of affairs for any child to become accustomed to.
Laura Wellington is the single mother of four, a widow, and award winning, multi-industry entrepreneur. She is the CEO of The Giddy Gander Company LLC and the creator of the hit children's television series, THE WUMBLERS. www.wumblers.com
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)I hear you. We are parents of 6 children and we feel that the world has become to clinical. My father in law said that back in the old days kids getting dirty was a good thing, it built up their immune systems. Nowadays we are like Michael Jackson with a mask over our mouths. The slightest bug and all hell breaks loose! I would be curious as to your thoughts on the sorts of messages TV is portraying to our kids. For example, here in Australia we are bombarded with messages such as 1 in 3 people will develop cancer. I think this is a tragic message, first because I don't believe it is true (1/3 of the people I know are not cancer victims, more like 1/3 of 1%), and second, living in fear of something is like asking for it to happen. And thus I like your article, because we need our kids to brush themselves off and get back on with things, not to live in fear of every little mishap that could occur, or to think that there are mountains when there are simply mole hills Dean
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