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Sometimes when I read really bad parenting advice I think of a comment made by Groucho Marx: “A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.”
A history of bad parenting, with advice from the foremost expert at the time, like character building by wearing thin leaking shoes to keep the child’s feet wet and cold, sounds more like physical and emotional child abuse.
What has parenting advice looked like in the past? Before you smirk, just think that your Granny probably didn’t read this advice, or you would be in a long line of serial generations of psychopaths, but many people did believe these nutters as these were the experts of their day. Are our experts today any wiser, or are they equally dim-witted?
Emmett Holt, in “The Care and Feeding of Children” published in 1894, wrote, “Babies under six months old should never be played with; and the less of it at any time the better for the infant.”
This is a sure way of raising children who will suffer from Attachment Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder and a number of other emotional disorders.
John B. Watson in “Psychological Care of Infant and Child” published in 1928, wrote, “Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit in your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say good night. Shake hands with them in the morning. Give them a pat on the head if they have made an extraordinary good job of a difficult task.”
To be a good parent, just do exactly the opposite of this expert advice and you will do OK.
What is most natural to parents is to raise their children the way they were raised. So if your parents showed you respect, never got angry, gave you firm but loving limits, gave you all the attention you needed, built your self esteem, and were all around perfect parents, then being a great parent will be natural for you.
If however, your parents ever were stressed, expressed anger or frustration, ignored you, or fell short in any area of parenting, which is essentially everybody, then what comes naturally to you may be destructive for your child.
The world today is changing so rapidly and the challenges you face as a parent as so different than your parents faced raising you, that if your parenting style feels natural to you, it is almost certain you are missing something.
There is no way to perfect parenting, but there are hundreds of good ways to be a parent.
If you are unsure or struggling with difficult behavior, there are links to common sense and encouraging advice specially aimed at different age groups and different problems can be found at Agape Trust parenting advice.
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