I was talking to Buddy last night, and musing about whether or not I was a pushover as a parent. I asked this because I was laying on our bed at 6:15, listening to the angry Rosebud howls emanating from her room, where, after a fun-filled evening of screaming, misbehaving and generally being an all around Grade A toddler, she was placed for an early bedtime.

I asked because I was laying there, feeling mushed and put through the mill, and terribly sad about having put her to bed.

I came to the conclusion, after going in to see her once she’d stopped crying (to provide her with a facewiping and a story), that what we do is gentle, but not soft. Not soft, because it took all my mental energy not to go charging back into her room to let her out, soothing her outrage and tears. Caving in - now that’s soft.

I also realized that we tend to use social consequence as a parenting model. This is not something I studied, and for all I know, doesn’t actually exist as a parenting model. But to me, it makes sense. It’s not the same as “natural consequences”, in that I’m not interested in letting the girls run into the street to discover why it’s a bad idea. Nor am I willing to let them experiment with any of the other things for which there is an obvious (to the adult eye) and likely painful “natural” consequence.

But somehow, letting the social consequences of their actions be known makes sense to me. After all, what are we trying to do with children but explain to them the rules that govern our society? I mean, sometimes we go out of our way to teach children things that are *not* part of the current social norm, and I do embrace that. I believe parents should look at social norms with a critical eye, though with a certain level of pragmatism, too. You cannot “unschool” children to such a degree that they have no link to the community at large. Well, you can, but I don’t want to see these childrens’ therapy bills for later in life, assuming they’re not being paid for by the state or federal penal institutions. 

For the behaviours demonstrated in children that are unacceptable or undesireable in society (tantrums, hitting, biting, whining), you provide the social consequence. Not the harshest social consequence, which would be bad. And scarring. And downright mean. But something more of the neutral.

In other words: shunning.

Shunning has been a tool used by societies around the world for hundreds of years in small communities. Because everyone in the community is so interrelated and interdependant, this act of denial or distancing is felt quite profoundly. 

And so it is within the microcosm of the home. 

It’s a very simple and short methodology and I find that (for the most part) it works. If you’re screaming and yelling, I don’t talk to you (unless you calm down). If you are hitting, you are simply kept out of my proximity (this will clearly stop working when either girl starts topping me height-wise. Hopefully it won’t be necessary by then). 

It’s a hard road, raising children. I’m constantly aware of needing to equip them for the larger world. Sometimes, it feels like a race against time to give them the tools they need before they need them.

Talking with some girlfriends last weeked about it, there were any number of assertions about how to protect your children from the big bad world.

One of my girlfriends suggested that knowledge was what they needed.

My response? “You could be the most ignorant girl in the class, if you’ve got self-esteem, you’re still not going let anyone smack you down.”

I mean, I value knowledge and seek to impart it wherever I can for these girls. But frankly, if I had to put all my eggies in one basket, I’d be self-esteem. I’m banking on it being the thing that keeps them as safe as they can be.

Hope I’m not wrong.