by Laurie White
One summer my husband Avery decided to teach our children to swim.
We would go to the pool about twice a week and spend maybe thirty minutes on lessons and another thirty just playing around.It was a nice break from our normal routine and we all had fun. Interestingly, we got some comments from other parents that were indicative of our times.
“Oh, I could never teach my child to swim – he would never listen to me!” or,
“My child wouldn’t take me seriously enough to learn from me,” and,
“I think my child needs a stranger to teach him so he’ll really work and not goof-off.”
Avery and I were surprised by how sure these parents were that their children could not learn a skill like swimming from them.
Not one of them said it was because they lacked the expertise; rather it was the child himself who lacked.
And in what was the child lacking?
Basic, old-fashioned respect for his parent. I understand the phenomenon to which these parents refer. Our children also are more awed by a stranger. In fact, our children are more awed by their daddy than by me. But by the time it gets down to me, there should still be plenty of respect left. They can be just as obedient when they feel comfortable and secure.
Back when we first were thinking about homeschooling, I was having trouble with Rebecca one afternoon. This feisty four-year-old didn’t want to listen, much less obey. Suddenly, it dawned on me with horror that if I were really going to keep these children at home, they would have to be obedient or I would never survive. Then, I was shocked at myself.
What in the world had I been planning to do if I did not homeschool?
I wasn’t going to let them run wild, surely. But I must not have been taking it very seriously. Obedient… that seemed like a nice way for a child to be, and I would certainly have aimed for it. But now, suddenly, it was a survival skill.
Me and Caroline
You might say my feelings on discipline had just been shoved into a time machine and beamed backwards to the eighteen hundreds.
For instance, in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s well-known books on pioneer life, it is obvious that Caroline “Ma” Ingalls was brought-up by both culture and family to believe and feel that discipline was as essential as food.
I, too, believed it was important.
I just didn’t feel it at a gut level. I believe that particular gut level feeling is what we have lost as a culture. We don’t feel the shock we should feel when children blatantly interrupt anymore, or talk back, or whine, or act bratty. We have been desensitized into thinking “that’s just children.”
But it isn’t. It’s actually undisciplined children.
The tricky thing is that there is a truly legitimate place for saying “that’s just children,” and every culture, even every family, will place the line of demarcation between what is excusable and what is inexcusable behavior at a different place.
That’s why it’s so easy for a culture to gradually shift this line over a little at a time without even realizing it. Then, before you know it, a time warp in child rearing has been created and a twentieth century mama like me can hardly fathom how a nineteenth century mama like Caroline Ingalls reared her children to be so well behaved.
A few summers ago I was reading Little House on the Prairie to the children.
We had just finished the chapter where Laura describes traveling with her family from Wisconsin to Oklahoma Territory in a covered wagon. Laura sat in the back all day, jostled endlessly on the bumpy trail, hot and tired. She records having complained once that she was uncomfortable. Ma responded with a sharp, surprised (gut level), “Laura!” and that was the end of it.
Our reading time over, I walked into the kitchen and picked up a magazine I’d been wanting to read. Headlined on it was “How to Survive Summer Vacation Traveling With Your Kids.”
It was a helpful list of activities and diversionary tactics to try on your young ones in the car.
It would have been hard to miss the irony of this accidental juxtaposing of Laura’s account with this article. Here’s Laura in an un-air-conditioned, un-upholstered, rickety wagon on an unpaved, rocky road with no cassette tapes or radio, Travel Bingo, or McDonald’s playgrounds at which to stop for a break. Yet which mom needs the most help keeping her children from whining and going stir-crazy? Certainly not Caroline.
Help--I’ve Been Robbed!
We modern women have been outrageously stripped of the skills with which Laura’s mom was equipped. In fact, after reading the entire series of the Little House books, I realized they had had a greater impact on my perception of child rearing then any of the several other books I had read on the subject.
While the parenting books had given me the right ideas and concepts, Laura’s narrative put flesh on them. Through her I could see what it ought to look like. I saw what it could look like. I saw new possibilities. I had a window to view an actual family back in an era when the schools, the churches, and most of your friends and family backed-up a character driven approach to child rearing.
Genuine Self-Esteem
Our aim should be to rear children who are strong in character, have high values, and with whom we can thoroughly enjoy spending time.
If they interrupt continually, if they whine, if they are allowed to act like a two-year-old when they are six, we shouldn’t be surprised that we need significant amounts of time “away from the kids” just to stay sane. And don’t you think children sense when they are not exactly your favorite people to be with?
We allow children to be the kind of children we don’t really like. We don’t like them, then we wonder why they lack self esteem and seek it in a peer group. And the schools, in a desperate attempt to build self-esteem backwards, try to teach Johnny that he’s wonderful “just the way he is” despite the fact that he’s obnoxious.
Kids are not stupid; Johnny knows when he’s not being wonderful.
If Mrs.Ingall’s had visited my home back when my children were small, she would most certainly still have been shocked at some of what our children were allowed to say and do or “get away with,” but I was never the same after that summer afternoon.
The practical implications of home schooling three children, of having them at home with me all day – every day – had sunk in.
From that moment on my intention to discipline was transformed from a cosmetologist who wants to improve someone’s appearance, to a surgeon’s resolve to get the cancer out.
Laurie White is an author, teacher, and mom to three kids who were homeschooled k-12. She writes books and other supplemental materials for homeschoolers including her popular and award-winning King Alfred’s English which combines history and English in a highly entertaining format for grades 7 and above. For more info and access to Laurie's free downloads go to www.TheShorterWord.com
One summer my husband Avery decided to teach our children to swim.
We would go to the pool about twice a week and spend maybe thirty minutes on lessons and another thirty just playing around.It was a nice break from our normal routine and we all had fun. Interestingly, we got some comments from other parents that were indicative of our times.
“Oh, I could never teach my child to swim – he would never listen to me!” or,
“My child wouldn’t take me seriously enough to learn from me,” and,
“I think my child needs a stranger to teach him so he’ll really work and not goof-off.”
Avery and I were surprised by how sure these parents were that their children could not learn a skill like swimming from them.
Not one of them said it was because they lacked the expertise; rather it was the child himself who lacked.
And in what was the child lacking?
Basic, old-fashioned respect for his parent. I understand the phenomenon to which these parents refer. Our children also are more awed by a stranger. In fact, our children are more awed by their daddy than by me. But by the time it gets down to me, there should still be plenty of respect left. They can be just as obedient when they feel comfortable and secure.
Back when we first were thinking about homeschooling, I was having trouble with Rebecca one afternoon. This feisty four-year-old didn’t want to listen, much less obey. Suddenly, it dawned on me with horror that if I were really going to keep these children at home, they would have to be obedient or I would never survive. Then, I was shocked at myself.
What in the world had I been planning to do if I did not homeschool?
I wasn’t going to let them run wild, surely. But I must not have been taking it very seriously. Obedient… that seemed like a nice way for a child to be, and I would certainly have aimed for it. But now, suddenly, it was a survival skill.
Me and Caroline
You might say my feelings on discipline had just been shoved into a time machine and beamed backwards to the eighteen hundreds.
For instance, in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s well-known books on pioneer life, it is obvious that Caroline “Ma” Ingalls was brought-up by both culture and family to believe and feel that discipline was as essential as food.
I, too, believed it was important.
I just didn’t feel it at a gut level. I believe that particular gut level feeling is what we have lost as a culture. We don’t feel the shock we should feel when children blatantly interrupt anymore, or talk back, or whine, or act bratty. We have been desensitized into thinking “that’s just children.”
But it isn’t. It’s actually undisciplined children.
The tricky thing is that there is a truly legitimate place for saying “that’s just children,” and every culture, even every family, will place the line of demarcation between what is excusable and what is inexcusable behavior at a different place.
That’s why it’s so easy for a culture to gradually shift this line over a little at a time without even realizing it. Then, before you know it, a time warp in child rearing has been created and a twentieth century mama like me can hardly fathom how a nineteenth century mama like Caroline Ingalls reared her children to be so well behaved.
A few summers ago I was reading Little House on the Prairie to the children.
We had just finished the chapter where Laura describes traveling with her family from Wisconsin to Oklahoma Territory in a covered wagon. Laura sat in the back all day, jostled endlessly on the bumpy trail, hot and tired. She records having complained once that she was uncomfortable. Ma responded with a sharp, surprised (gut level), “Laura!” and that was the end of it.
Our reading time over, I walked into the kitchen and picked up a magazine I’d been wanting to read. Headlined on it was “How to Survive Summer Vacation Traveling With Your Kids.”
It was a helpful list of activities and diversionary tactics to try on your young ones in the car.
It would have been hard to miss the irony of this accidental juxtaposing of Laura’s account with this article. Here’s Laura in an un-air-conditioned, un-upholstered, rickety wagon on an unpaved, rocky road with no cassette tapes or radio, Travel Bingo, or McDonald’s playgrounds at which to stop for a break. Yet which mom needs the most help keeping her children from whining and going stir-crazy? Certainly not Caroline.
Help--I’ve Been Robbed!
We modern women have been outrageously stripped of the skills with which Laura’s mom was equipped. In fact, after reading the entire series of the Little House books, I realized they had had a greater impact on my perception of child rearing then any of the several other books I had read on the subject.
While the parenting books had given me the right ideas and concepts, Laura’s narrative put flesh on them. Through her I could see what it ought to look like. I saw what it could look like. I saw new possibilities. I had a window to view an actual family back in an era when the schools, the churches, and most of your friends and family backed-up a character driven approach to child rearing.
Genuine Self-Esteem
Our aim should be to rear children who are strong in character, have high values, and with whom we can thoroughly enjoy spending time.
If they interrupt continually, if they whine, if they are allowed to act like a two-year-old when they are six, we shouldn’t be surprised that we need significant amounts of time “away from the kids” just to stay sane. And don’t you think children sense when they are not exactly your favorite people to be with?
We allow children to be the kind of children we don’t really like. We don’t like them, then we wonder why they lack self esteem and seek it in a peer group. And the schools, in a desperate attempt to build self-esteem backwards, try to teach Johnny that he’s wonderful “just the way he is” despite the fact that he’s obnoxious.
Kids are not stupid; Johnny knows when he’s not being wonderful.
If Mrs.Ingall’s had visited my home back when my children were small, she would most certainly still have been shocked at some of what our children were allowed to say and do or “get away with,” but I was never the same after that summer afternoon.
The practical implications of home schooling three children, of having them at home with me all day – every day – had sunk in.
From that moment on my intention to discipline was transformed from a cosmetologist who wants to improve someone’s appearance, to a surgeon’s resolve to get the cancer out.
Laurie White is an author, teacher, and mom to three kids who were homeschooled k-12. She writes books and other supplemental materials for homeschoolers including her popular and award-winning King Alfred’s English which combines history and English in a highly entertaining format for grades 7 and above. For more info and access to Laurie's free downloads go to www.TheShorterWord.com
