What in the world are we doing to our kids?
A good friend of mine proposed that we are killing them with kindness. I had never considered such a thing, but after taking a minute to listen to him, I came to the thought that he just may be right.
They say you parrot the behavior of your parents, because they are the only role model for parenting you really know, but it seem that ever since the baby-boomers came along, many of us have completely flipped the parenting model around. Maybe this, is the true legacy of the "Hippy" generation.
My parents had little or nothing to do with my play activities. As a matter of fact of all the sports I ever played, from pick up games to various school sports, I can only remember my parents attending once, an 8th grade football game. I went on to participate in many school sports and while I was pretty average at most but I did share a school record on a track relay team for a while. But though it all, my parents were never there and I was OK with it. It just was, the way that it was.
There were a few kid's parents, who attended all the games, but to me I thought this was a little wimpy of the kids and over protective of the parents. I believe that many of my friends felt the same way.
You see we were children of the WWII veterans and to them kids seem to be an after thought. When it came to play, it always was, "just go outside and play," and we did. But not anymore!
We (myself include) seem to supervise most if not all of the play activities that our kids have. Organized sports have gotten the best of us and we are lined up to get 'em signed up. We pay to have them play and go to all of their games and many of their practices. Many parents drive miles and miles on weekends for their kids to compete and pay professional coaches to train them.
My point isn't this is inherently bad, only that it is different and along with the benefits there may be a down side to it. So my question to you is "do your kids know how to play with out any involvement from you? If not, are we doing a disservice to our kids.
I am thinking, maybe.....
