Humanist Parenting: Think. Teach. Love.

As my boys grow older and become less baby/toddler-like, I have found myself becoming the queen of the  "no" and "don't". It feels like every time I turn around, one of them is doing something I have to put the kibosh on, stat. "No, don't jump off the furniture." "No, please don't throw your food." "Don't poke your sister in the eye!" And the list goes on. When they were babies, fascinated by everything in the world around them, I never had to say no as much as I say it now. I was encouraging them to touch, taste, look, smell and hear whatever they could. Of course, this was all initiated by me, and I had complete control over all of the experiences they enjoyed. These days, however, they are often left to their own devices while I am taking care of the baby, cooking, cleaning, paying bills or what have you, and I don't always get to sit them down in front of something and monitor while they experience it. And now that they are older, they have a lot more control and independence when it comes to eating, playing and navigating through the house. Because of this, I have found myself in the never-ending pattern of "no".

Looking at it from a higher level, it makes me crazy. I sound like a broken record. How annoying and infuriating it must be for them to be corrected all day long by Mom, always ruining their fun. But this is how we see other parents doing it. You tell your kid no so they stay clean and safe, and you expect them to listen to you and be obedient because that's what society expects: Calm, thoughtful and obedient children who are seen and not heard, who listen to their parents and don't get into stuff because that would cause trouble and reflect poorly on the parents. How many parents have you seen do this to their children? I'm sure most of us do it all the time. Not maliciously, of course, we would never intentionally ruin the fun for our children because we are mean. We are trying to make less work for ourselves and turn them into well-behaved adults. Our instinct is to avoid things like messes and having things broken or missing. Grown-ups don't like messes and broken stuff, dammit!

When I noticed my "no" pattern, I tried to give myself a break. I am doing it for their own good. I am looking out for their safety, their health and their well-being, I would tell myself. I can't let them jump off things or throw food because then they will do it all the time and never listen to adults or behave, and that would embarrass me. But after awhile, it started sounding hollow. Like maybe I was lying to myself and I started feeling foolish for even trying to convince ME. I like to think I'm smarter than I think I am. (Wait, what?) Yes, there were some things I stopped that would have been a huge safety hazard, (playing baseball in the kitchen, there's one) but I started looking more deeply at some of the other reasons I was saying no, and the realizations made me ashamed. "Don't throw your food!" (Because I don't want to CLEAN IT UP!) "Don't dump dirt on the dog." (Because he is going to track it into my house!) "No touching or playing with expensive electronics" (Because they are expensive, OBVIOUSLY and I don't want to pay for them again) "Don't pull out all the grass and flowers!" (Because I want my yard to look good!) and the list goes on.

Anyway, I came to the realization that I didn't want to be the queen of "no" and "don't", the killjoy of my children's wonderful, beautiful, playful and plentiful spirit, so I decided to start analyzing before automatically saying no to something. Sort of doing a quick quiz in my head based on the activity I was seeing, or making a mental pros and cons list to see if this is really a big deal. And surprisingly, I found that MOST of the stuff they want to do that I was saying no to isn't a big deal AT ALL. Let's do an example:

Activity: Splashing in the tub. 

My beef: This obviously makes me crazy because the entire bathroom gets soaked, including myself. (Goodbye, mascara) I need extra towels to clean it up and I need to spend extra time cleaning to make sure no one slips in it.

What's there to gain? (This could be the pros of my pros and cons list) The kids LOVE splashing. It makes them happy. They giggle and squeal and are tickled pink when they get mommy all wet. It feels like they're at a water park! (Okay, maybe not.)

What are the short and long-term consequences of splashing? (i.e. "the big deal") 
Are they going to die? No. Will they get injured? Not as long as it's wiped up when they're done. Is getting the bathroom and even myself a little wet going to bring shame on my entire family and turn my children into delinquents? Um, no. As a matter of fact, it could turn into a really awesome, positive bonding experience between the boys and I that will etch itself in their childhood memories forever. Yay!

And basically that was what made my decision. I know when typed out it looks like a long process with lots of complicated thought, but in my head it took, like, 2.5 seconds. I tried to start using it as often as possible when the kids were doing something that I thought was inappropriate. Taking my makeup brushes, pressing the lotion squirter 20 times, bringing "inside" toys outside (and vice-versa), playing with Xbox controllers, mixing Play-Doh colors (UGH that was hard), dumping out every piece of clothing they own out of their dresser, MAN there are so many things I was saying "no" to that I had to step back and re-analyze.

It hasn't been easy. I'm not going to lie and say that suddenly I am this enlightened, laid-back or permissive parent who lets their child take the lead. I wish I could, but it's just not like that. With three kids, school, a house to run, the kids' activities and everything else, it's really difficult not to say "no" to something because it makes a mess and I just really don't feel like cleaning it up. In fact, there are still lots of times when I do say no, simply because I don't need another chore at that given moment, and despite the best of intentions, have even found myself backsliding into a constant stream of "no" for that day, or even week! But, I will say that I take small victories where I can. I feel pretty great that I can even take one or two situations a day (or WEEK, lol) where I can put aside my own selfish reasons and just let them be kids.

And you know what's great about that? Yes it's made some more work for me, but its really improved the relationship I have with my kids. There's less arguments and yelling. Less frustration for all of us. We laugh more, we have more fun together, and they even teach me things I never knew myself. I get to take a few minutes to leave the mind of "parent" and enter the mind of "child." And let's be honest, whose mind do you think is more interesting between those two?
What's more, Steve recently showed me a video of an interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson (someone he and   I both admire) about this particular subject, and it hit us like a ton of bricks. Not only were we squashing things that made our kids happy, we were completely stamping out their curiosity for the world. By not allowing them to take the reigns and make ridiculous messes, to take things apart and see how they work, to perform an action and observe the cause-and-effect relationship, we were effectively stamping the "scientists" out of our children, and that horrified us. We don't want to raise the children that have been told to leave things alone so often that they no longer try to make sense of the world around them. Here is the clip, only about 2 minutes, definitely check it out:

It's common sense, really. I am ashamed it took me this long to realize that I should be valuing things like messes and toys being taken apart, because they harbor curiosity and creativity. I mean, if you really think about it, to me it sounds foolish to want a child who touches nothing unless they have permission, who never questions anything around them or never tries to tinker with something to see how it works. Someone who is content doing what they're told and never looking to more. Is that what we want to be instilling in our children? Is that how we want our future leaders to be? Of course not. They would be mindless drones. Of course that is an extreme example, but I think it's important. At least in our case.

Anyway, as usual I am just sharing what has been working for us in our experiences. I try not to get preachy or dole out too much advice, but hell, this is MY blog, so if I were to give any, it would be this: Let kids BE kids. If it's not going to compromise their safety or well-being, why not? There's another video of Neil doing an interview with Stephen Colbert where he says basically the same thing. Who cares if it's messy? Who cares if its expensive? You decided to have these children, you knew they would be messy and expensive going into it! Why not sacrifice mess and expense to let them enjoy their childhood and do what they do best? KIDS NEED TO BE KIDS! Yelling, screaming, crying, squealing? Yup, that's what kids do. (Even in public, gasp!) Running, jumping off furniture, testing limits, picking their nose, throwing food...those are all things that kids do. Don't let society or some other ass at a restaurant tell you that your kids need to be perfectly behaved. Kids are born curious, and loud, and uninhibited. Don't try to squeeze all that glory out of them so people will think you have "good kids." Good kids are kids who act like kids.

/drops mic