Do we all live vicariously through our children or are we simply trying our best to give them a better life?

Before I had kids, I would admittedly cattily mock the football dad or the stage mom, or anyone who met some stereotype of a parent ‘living through’ their child.  Now that I have been with my daughters for 10 and 7 years, I have realized that perhaps this easy stereotype is not so cut and dried.

You see, almost every parent has a preferred activity which helped give meaning to their life or they lived out an existentially, life-shaping series of events which they think important.  For some parents, it is football.  For others, it is music or academics or swimming or computers or, in my case, benign neglect.  It is like the movie The Breakfast Club.

As you will notice, a lot of the items on the living vicariously list are competitive ‘sports’.  Why do I put sports in quotes? Because most people think of sports as things associated with athletics, but in reality, music can be a sport and academic grades are the biggest competitive sport of all.  In fact with grades, every child is forced to participate in that sport.

For me, living vicariously involves trying to give my daughters tons of free time and space as I had when young.  While this involves not wanting to label them nor turn them into something nor making them my project, I would be lying if I did not acknowledge that I am no different from the sports dad or the stage mom:  I am trying to give the girls something that I found infinitely valuable to my life and my personal development, and something which is in sync with my values.

Am I living vicariously through them?  Well, I would have to admit I probably am.  My values require me to not define them but to try to offer them help as they define themselves.  This is still a construct through which I impose my values on them.

What’s my point?  Be careful how fast you judge others.  Before I had kids or at least ones old enough to be involved in ‘stuff’, it was easy to indict.  Now, I may disagree with another parents ferocity and I may think them wrong in their approach, but I cannot dismiss them with a ‘living vicariously’ derogatory comment.  I have to acknowledge that we all do it.

The benefit of this acknowledgment is that any discussion can then start from an agreeable premise:  we all want what is best for our kids.

Creating our childhood fears in our children

I would like to address something which flys under the radar of normal conversation in this regard.  For all the clichés attached to living vicariously through your kids, there are many parents who say ‘I am going to be more supportive’ or ‘compassionate’ to my kids than my parents were.  I will give them ‘opportunities’ I never had or be more ‘fair’ amongst my children.  I will be better than my parents!

An oddity I have seen over and over can be summed up in a short story I read recently about a father who felt his parents were neglectful in regard to protecting him from a mean dog.  He always thought when he had kids, he would protect them unlike what was done to him.  He would provide for his kids as he was NOT provided for.

That sounds like a pretty simple statement and a nice sentiment.  The problem is that in order for him to allay his child’s fear (HIS actual fear from HIS childhood), he first needed to create the fear in his child.  Apparently, he would take his daughter and put her in uncomfortable, scary situations with a dog or animal (not dangerous, but scary to her), and then take her away from the situation with great compassion.

Is he living vicariously through her?  Absolutely, just not in the way normally thought of.

This story illustrates a fundamental problem of us fixing our childhood problems in our kids.  We first have to create our problems in our kids.  When we do, rather than solving those problems and being compassionate, we create and pass on our very real fears.

Summarized, this could be stated as:  Parents want to offer what was not given to them, but what they pass on is the fears they had.

As my daughters get older, I have seen myself wanting them to see the values I hold dear and sometimes they do, sometimes they do not.  My feelings about these things can be very, very strong, but do they really need to be?  Should they be?  Why does my knee want to jerk sometimes? 

Am I trying to live vicariously through my children?  Most likely, yes.  All of us with our sports, stage, academics, fishing, free time, fear resolutions, and on and on do it.  We should try to remember to consider what are OUR needs and what are our children’s needs.

They are individuals who have their own personal needs.

The Battle of Wills – why do it?

Many times, sometimes more than once a day, a child makes a mistake and when asked about it, they may say ‘it was an accident’ or ‘I didn’t see my brother when I kicked him’.

Far too often, these excuses or denials are met with parental derision and an almost fanatical attempt to force the child to admit ‘the truth’.

What do you mean an accident?  How could you not have seen X or what is wrong with you doing Y?  We can go on and on DEMANDING the truth, stating what WE SAW and accusing, asking for sorrys, apologies and such.

But when it comes down to it, what good does this do and why do we do it?

First off, after stating what you saw in simple terms (please don’t throw a ball in the house) and stating your belief that it was the wrong thing to do (it could break something), what good does all the demanding and yelling and tones do?  Does it make a child more sorry or more understanding of their error?  Doubtful.  After your first sentence, the child ALREADY knows the issue. 

What about the posing?  The parent being the almighty arbiter of fairness and self righteous know it all?  Does that stance by a parent provide a learning environment for a mistake or an avenue for bitterness and the hiding of the truth? 

It strikes me that anything beyond the initial, rational, hopefully calm statement of the situation is actually detrimental to learning and will most likely lead to more conflict.  Put another way, if your boss excoriated you and then stood posing at the corner of your cubicle looking down his nose, would you want to help him or make him happy?  No way.

So why do we do this?  That is for you to decide.  Perhaps it feels good to be on the power trip or maybe you think it does work or maybe guilt is your tool.

There is a good chance that it was done to you as a child if you do it to your kids.  Seriously, who would act that way to another person if they thought about it for 5 minutes?  I like to think few people would…

http://news.yahoo.com/breaking-code-why-yuor-barin-raed-tihs-135604013.html

When you know the brain works like this, is it possible that early learning interventions actually hamstring the brain's natural ability to figure things out? Put another way, your brain knows you the best and will find a way to fix your natural defects. When another 'professional' comes in and says we will find the one best way to fix you, there is a strong chance they will be at best inefficient at doing so.  At worst, they may be trying to force a square peg in a round hole.

Am I saying all interventions are wrong?  Of course not.  That would be quite silly.  I am saying that the principle should be 'first do no harm', and be very aware of what the results could be.

For instance, as a child, I remember having left/right issues with reading or simply know one from the other.  Perhaps my genetic history came from one of the languages which go the opposite of ours.  Who knows?  The fact is that it was an issue.  Now, if someone had tried to fix me by drilling me, would it have helped?

Honestly, I have no way of knowing but I do know that I grew out of it WITHOUT any help.  I just worked around my issues and they went away.  This is what happens to most of our weaknesses.  We work around them and develop our strengths.

Had someone forced my to work on THEIR timetable on THEIR exercises to get me to a level THEY thought was healthy, it would have been an unhappy experience.

For the past 50 years, schools and pedagogy have driven us toward a therapeutic approach to learning and child rearing.  We need 'enrichments' and 'activities', 'pre-pre-schools', and 'early learning interventions'.  We have the data and the history, but for all the effort and time and money, the results?

Where are those great leaps in intellect and knowledge?  The numbers tell a story of stagnation and worse.  Perhaps, just perhaps, de-institutionalizing childhood would be a better path.  

If you make your children your ‘project’, then what becomes their project?  The answer is their project, instead of finding their place and fulfillment in life, becomes fulfilling your needs.  If they fail at fulfilling your needs (as opposed to ones they create or find), it is devastating, especially if you use conditional love based on your needs being met.  Why devastating?  Because children are born with a drive to fulfill parental wishes and mimic their actions. 

If a child’s project becomes fulfilling another person’s needs (like yours), what happens when they wake up a teenager and realize you are full of crap?  They look for someone else for whom to fulfill needs.  Again, they are not intrinsically motivated (fulfilling their life needs), but extrinsically motivated (fulfilling the emotional needs of another) and it is a hard habit to break if that is how one is raised.

In addition, if a child is busy trying to fulfill someone else’s needs, they would also tend to have someone else fulfill their needs (because they do still have them), which is the exact chain that was placed upon them.  If they are blamed for not fulfilling the needs of their parents (as a project), then they will blame others as well.

This reminds me of all the many stories and fairy tales which have similar symbolism:  almost all the fairy princesses (of course, for them is was a 'step' mother lest someone anger all moms), pinochio, coraline, despereux, and tons more.

We all want what is best for our kids, but we should be careful exactly what lessons are hidden behind our ‘lessons’.  Most people say they want kids who are good decision makers, leaders, and people who think for themselves.  Sometimes it requires us to do less, not more, to create the outcome we desire. 

Here is the definition of ADHD - Predominantly inattentive type symptoms may include:

• Be easily distracted, miss details, forget things, and frequently switch from one activity to another
• Have difficulty maintaining focus on one task
• Become bored with a task after only a few minutes, unless doing something enjoyable
• Have difficulty focusing attention on organizing and completing a task or learning something new or trouble completing or turning in homework assignments, often losing things (e.g., pencils, toys, assignments) needed to complete tasks or activities
• Not seem to listen when spoken to
• Daydream, become easily confused, and move slowly
• Have difficulty processing information as quickly and accurately as others
• Struggle to follow instructions.

Predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type symptoms may include:

• Fidget and squirm in their seats
• Talk nonstop
• Dash around, touching or playing with anything and everything in sight
• Have trouble sitting still during dinner, school, and story time
• Be constantly in motion
• Have difficulty doing quiet tasks or activities.

and also these manifestations primarily of impulsivity:

• Be very impatient
• Blurt out inappropriate comments, show their emotions without restraint, and act without regard for consequences
• Have difficulty waiting for things they want or waiting their turns in games

They go on to say:

Most people exhibit some of these behaviors, but not to the degree where such behaviors significantly interfere with a person's work, relationships, or studies—and in the absence of significant interference or impairment, a diagnosis of ADHD is normally not appropriate.

Notice the bold words – what if work is boring, the studies have a bully teacher and/or a relationship is not good?  Then significant behaviors are the normal reaction of ANY person or child.

Most kids are ‘diagnosed’ with this by a ‘school psychologist’ who put the child through some tests in a ‘significantly’ different environment from their every world.  In addition, school is by its nature often boring, pathetic, uninteresting, and run by adults who you have to answer to if you want to pee.  That ENVIRONMENT, by its very nature, impairs a child’s autonomy and causes the behaviors.

Now is the child to blame, or does the environment stink.  Is the child to be diagnosed or are they acting normal?

Better said, let me take any adult to some ‘class’ which they find boring or meaningless, then lets see exactly how long until they exhibit ‘symptoms’.  Then when this adult wants to go to the bathroom, they are met with “you can wait”.  When they want to ask a question, they are told they should “have been listening better”.  When they get bored and start to doodle, the paper is taken from them and worse.  And on and on.

I would also wager a lot of money that I could take nearly every ADHD child who is not an absolute extreme (like most) and let them do what they love and their symptoms go away…..like any human being.  So again, is this a scientific’diagnosis’ or just run of the mill BS and labeling?

And lastly, why is the assumption always that there is no reason outside of the school that leads to the behaviour.  If a parent says a child is belligerent or easily frustrated or gets angry ‘easily’, maybe there are concrete reasons for this.  If you home or work life sucks, are you more belligerent and less patient?  Yes.  Then why do ‘psychologists’ insist on labeling kids with something like ADHD?

Because that would require changing the one key premise:  is the child a priori RIGHT OR WRONG?

With my daughters, I start from the assumption that they are naturally good, naturally have a moral sense, naturally patient, naturally want to learn, and are naturally benevolent.  If you start with opposite assumptions, you can end up vastly different places. 

Put another way, if you think a child is naturally good but they are not acting that way, my first thought is what is wrong with the environment or what am I doing wrong.  If you assume children need shaped and ‘fixed’, then you ‘diagnose’ them and go on to force even more actions upon them.  A child acting badly is one who needs MORE action upon them, not LESS.

Now to return to the ‘definition’ of ADHD.  Read it again.  That is not science.  That is not compassion.  It’s a cop-out.  It’s a way to place the blame on someone besides adults, besides parents, besides schools, and besides teachers.  Blame the child.

On an equally ‘wrong’ side but in a well-meaning way, labeling or ‘diagnosing’ is a way to make parents feel like they are doing something.  Most parents want what is best for their child and labeling and prescribing actions on a child sure is ‘something’.  Is it science based?  No.  Is it effective?  Highly questionable, as myriad studies and logic have shown (more on this in future posts).

And let’s compare this to real science.  A maple tree has certain attributes like leaf, bark, see, etc which make it a maple.  High blood pressure exists whether a person is sitting in an airport or watching the news.  E=MC2 under normal circumstances.

For ADHD, ‘professionals’ randomly pick things that bother them in a particular situation and then slap an all situation label on the child which somehow ‘defines’ the child.  Balderdash!

Perhaps we should label the labelers as suffering from Aptitude Destroying Hyperinvective Disorder?