June 5, 2007
Lyndon made a wise point in a comment on my last post that I think is worthy of addressing.
When I got on my soapbox about our children doing as we do, it was a response to the question, “How do I get my child to read? He hates reading!” from a fellow home schooler who doesn’t read herself. I found that rather frustrating, and that is why I wrote the post.
Lyndon’s comment got me thinking about my parenting (not that I need much encouragement there) but I realized a couple of things.
First of all, I do not believe that all of the faults in my children’s life are my fault. They’re not. My children are unique individuals, different from me, although they are like me. I do believe that many faults are generational, in that we pass on poor life-skills so that our children in turn commit the same mistakes that we do.
However, my children are perfectly capable of making their own new and unique mistakes. My children are human. My children are also young, and so many of the negative traits they exhibit are ‘parroting’ what they have seen (in classical home school circles – under age ten is the “grammar stage”, or what Susan Wise Bauer calls the “parroting stage”.)
I realize that as they grow and continue to discover and define themselves, they will begin to show traits, both positive and negative, that I myself do not have.
I hope I will have the grace to learn from them in those positive areas they excel at, and I hope that I will have built some sort of solid relationship that includes accountability so that I can call them on those negative things. I want to be able to approach my children in the same way I would approach the others in my life if I saw them struggling with negative behaviors.
I’m not sure how to do this right now. I would love to hear from wiser parents who have walked this road, because honestly, in my home right now it’s mostly “parroting sins.”
I know the time will come when things will change and I will face far greater challenges. I expect that I will have to work it out as I go along, and I expect that I will probably make many of my own mistakes in doing so.
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