by Specop_007 » Tue 21 Dec 2004, 12:14:48
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Grandpa', 'M')y goal was to raise children who were highly capable of living successful lives. This meant letting them learn how to run their own lives, fostering a sense of self worth and being loved and admired, and encouraging values that serve life.
Children are born with the drive for independence. A parent only needs to walk the line between encouraging this drive and providing necessary protection until the child is able to take over completely.
We never had rebellion problems because there was little for our children to rebel against. We always encouraged our children to make their own choices, buyt we acted as sounding boards when they needed help. Other parents thought we were overly lenient, but in fact what we did worked, and our children were and are happy and successful in their lives, both by our standards and theirs, and they love us and want to be involved in our lives and want us involved in their adult lives.
We certainly would never have considered doing a science project for our children or even choosing the subject matter. We would have given help only if it was incidental. I mentioned this issue today in a phone converstaion to one of my daughters who is a teacher herself, and has a second grader herself. She laughed cause her son just did a project for school building an Indian village out of cardboard. She said that you could tell that his project was done by him while most of his classmates' villages had a degree of perfection clearly not attainable by second graders. I wonder how many of these children will grow up to be highly capable adults, since part of the process of learning to live one's life is to practice living it under the watchful eyes of loving parents.
Good way to do it, we're pretty much the same. Difference is, I like to guide them a bit. Show them the path then let them walk it. You assumed too much to begin with, and most likely still do.
On a side note, you must absolutely hate the way schools have turned in the past few years.