JOHN ROSEMOND | Parenting Children have own minds, but they require shaping

A short collection of musings on the nature of parenting and its current condition in America:
By the time your child is 24 months old, he is making decisions every day that have absolutely nothing to do with anything you have ever done or anything you have failed to do as a parent. I hope this is not disappointing, but your child's behavior isn't all about you.
As Grandma put it, "Every child has a mind of his own."
It takes two years to convince a child that he is the center of the universe and most of the next 16 to convince him that he is not.
Sometimes, unfortunately, that isn't sufficient.
During the first two years of the child's life, the parents' job is to root the child securely in the world, to let him know that he is loved and wanted and that he belongs.
Once the rooting has been accomplished, the time for pruning is at hand, the time for trimming back the overgrowth, for nipping the buds, for helping the child shape himself into someone who is pleasing to the eye and the ear.
Balancing rules
Rules without a loving relationship give a child all the reason he needs to rebel. Likewise, love without limits, consistently enforced, gives a child all the reason he needs to take whatever license he wants.
On one hand, many of today's parents are convinced that their children are "gifted." On the other, they treat them like dummies. They seem convinced, for example, that these same supposedly brilliant children are incapable of learning by trial and error. They must, because we find these parents trying (in vain) to prevent their children from making any errors at all.
The essential difference between child-rearing in the 1950s and now is NOT that mothers were in the home in the 1950s, whereas many of today's mothers work outside the home.
The essential difference is that the working mother (actually, and interestingly enough, she called herself a working wife) of the 1950s did not come home bearing a load of guilt.
She did not feel compelled to dance as fast as she could in her child's life until his bedtime to compensate for her absence from his life during her working hours.
Right kind of fear
The child growing up in the 1950s was afraid of his mother. Today's mother is likely to be afraid of her child, who isn't even the least bit intimidated by her. Since the 1950s, every indicator of child mental health in America has been in precipitous decline.
Do we dare conclude that being afraid of one's mother isn't a bad thing at all, that it might even be (horrors!) in a child's best interest that he be afraid of his mother?
Just because you discipline a certain form of misbehavior properly does not mean your child will stop misbehaving in that way. If the discipline "doesn't work," just keep right on delivering it.
Timeout is the single most ineffectual form of discipline ever invented. When a typically well-behaved child misbehaves, just about any discipline will do the job. A stern look will probably suffice.
XJohn Rosemond is a family psychologist. Questions of general interest may be sent to him at Affirmative Parenting, 1020 East 86th Street, Suite 26B, Indianapolis, Ind. 46240 and at his Web site: www.rosemond.com.