Parenting is a personal choice and I have found that children want to be parented with respect; the most important concern for them is to be trusted and listened to.
How do parents have the self-assurance to follow their intuition and inner knowing, particularly when their child is one of the 15% to 20% who are spirited and highly sensitive? The answers in the example below go some way to answering this question.
In a feedback from workshops I conducted with children aged from four to thirteen, I asked them two questions. The first question being: What do you want most from your parents? The response in its many forms was essentially for parents “to spend time playing with me” and to “really listen to me when I am talking”. These requests seem simple enough but many of the comments were followed by explanations involving Mummy constantly looking at her phone, and Daddy looking at his phone or sending emails.
Children in workshops, particularly those aged eight and above wanted their parents to let them trust their own judgement in areas such as food choices and bedtimes.
The second question I asked was: What do you think your parents want for you? The essence of the answers was to be “happy and healthy children”. What common sense and wisdom from four-year-olds.
What do children want most from their parents?
Gitta, aged eight: “Time to play with me, and to really listen to me when I am talking. Not be looking at their phone and going, ‘Ah ha, ah ha, that’s good’.”
My approach
My parenting was more open-ended and mostly permissive with the occasional strict interlude. My children now call it parenting by guilt! So how did this work? Our family shared meals together and talked about our day and the children’s activities.
When they started going to parties and sleepovers as teenagers we would talk about drugs and alcohol, and also travelling in cars with peers who had been drinking. We would say, “You can go, but it’s your responsibility”. That was our mantra be it regarding their homework, parties or events where there might be decisions they needed to make about alcohol and drugs or dangerous activities.
These were the days where there were no mobile phones and nightclubs were the go-to places. The term helicopter parenting was not a commonly used term, and it was far more common for parents to be less involved in every activity teens undertook. Strict parents controlled where children went but could not check in to their play activities to the same degree we can today with technology. We did have a policy of picking them up from wherever; even if it was 3 am it gave us some comfort to know they got home safely.
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