I would love to know what other fabulous parents think about this issue (and please excuse me as this is very flow-of-consciousness this post! I am using the space to work out what I'm feeling)
When does controlling become too restrictive?
How can we as parents know when we are controlling something for our own benefit and actually its not that big a deal for the kids?
Here's some things we control the children's exposure to/use of:
TV, Computer games, internet,
Gluten, Sugar, Caffeine, to many processed foods, hormone injected/factory farmed meat,
Additives, aspartame, artificial colours etc.
(Media, news, other visual images or movies that are teenage or adult themed - though this is not an issue, it is easier to avoid over-exposure to these)
I also control my own exposure to these things - I find that too much of any of these things is detrimental to my health. However, to try to control the kids' use of these things can be really time-consuming, energy sapping and it can often result in me making up arbitrary rules that have no back up - out of fear that somehow we 're going to get swallowed up by these things. I feel I am working against the 'State' who actively promote and expect these things to be a usual part of childhood and life in general, so to try to curb or limit the use of them is swimming against a very swift and strong tide.
Blackberry is cross today. She is tired and cranky because she stayed up late through her own choice, repeatedly ignoring gentle reminders that its late. She is angry because we had two no-screen days at the weekend, my response to suddenly feeling that it had taken over our lives -- she patterns Papa W and I's use of the computer which is having it on all day and writing on it whenever we remember there's something to do, something to check, something to ask, watch etc. We want to change this habit for ourselves. Its an addiction like any other. Without the constant availability of a screen, my creativity soars and I feel more in control of my own life. I am wanting this freedom for my children too.
It is most noticeable when the children crowd round each other on there and are oblivious to anything else.
It curbs our creativity by giving an unlimitable distraction away from real life (and yet what is 'real' life? If a lot of their friends are doing these things unlimited, then what makes my kids any different?). Again, this is partly because of the constant streaming of high-stimulation adverts, information, allusions to a particular lifestyle, mind-numbing and subliminal programming that is allowed and promoted by the State.
Without it though, it is easy to feel isolated (I love blogging and visiting Facebook at intervals) - without television access I can sometimes feel like I am over-sacrificing! Being a martyr to a hippie cause, which isn't true of me. I feel I can hold my centre and accept all different lifestyles, I just want to be able to choose. And yet the pervasiveness of what's offered by mainstream is harder for a child to filter is it not? Or easier maybe...! That's what I mean, when do my parental concerns turn into overkill? These precious creatures that I care for are naturally more evolved than I, and so surely will have other means of filtering all the nonsense out?
And so Blackberry is fighting back by grabbing back her autonomy in other ways. It is slightly more complicated than that (as it is in all family dynamics! and again I won't attempt to psycho-analyse that one on this blog)... but enough to say that I can see the link between me trying to control things (for what I as her guardian see as being her best interests) and then her needing to assert her autonomy in other ways. And as a result I'm feeling pretty miserable!
I'll leave it there. I'm amazed if you've read to the end, thanks, and I'd love to hear your comments below. I don't know why this has come up for my attention today, but trying to go with it and express it as it works through.
Namaste.
So this is my own stream of consciuousness in reply - thank you for distracting me today x
ReplyDeleteI do control a lot for my kids, partly because well duh I home ed and so I gatekeep relationships and activites in a way I couldn't if they were in a B&M school. But part of it stems from the steiner philosophy and the knowledge that children do need the help of their adults as they grow into themselves.
I know if I let the kids stay up too late or eat too much sugar or watch too many dvds or play on the computer at all, they will react in ways that reduce the happiness of all of us, themselves included. Sometimes I let them experience that - and they talk wisely about getting "dvd sick" and being on a "sugar high". But even if they are begging to stay up or watch a show or eat chocolate all afternoon, I know when I need to say no and so I say it. When I am wobbling in the sense of purpose, assurance and confidence in my mothering vocation, that is when I am likely to be pushed into something that won't work out by the whining or begging.
We do minimise media but probably not as much as we should do. We mainly watch older comedies and nature/history documentaries - but I well remember how influenced I was (and sometimes still am) by film/tv. I think you're right that kids lack the filters and experience to process things they see on TV. I was thinking of a show I watched where drug use is joked about - I have never touched any sort of drug and I can watch it and know that taking drugs is not normal or safe or wise, but if the kids saw it they would maybe process that drugs are a funny and normal part of adult life.
This weekend the kids asked to watch a series called H2O - Just add water, about girls who become mermaids. So we started watching it and they really enjoyed it but it had so many messages that stood out to me - that the person who did research and understood science/history was a boy, that girls should wear bikinis, that others kids are likely to be bullies and play nasty tricks, that getting revenge is good, that parents are silly, that girls are interested in makeup and boys and clothes, that fitting in is really really important and it is traumatic not to be like other people. The kids were just absorbing these messages without knowing it. Luckily (?) for them, they have me on hand to be commenting and rolling my eyes and trying to reinforce the message of individuality and equality etc.
I know you'll find a good path for you and yours. I think a big part of it is having confidence in your decisions and choices - I love how that is emphasised in the best writing about attchment and waldorf parenting: there are a billion options and choices, but we need to pick whichever seems best to us in our judgement and then hold fast to it with the authority and assurance that befits us as the guardians of our little ones. Parenting seems so vital and essential and we think about it so much, and it is so easy to "wobble" and feel that we need to reconsider all the time. Maybe for you guys, more media is a good thing; maybe less; maybe none. Maybe there is one answer for this time in your family life, that wasn't the answer a month ago and won't be the answer in another few months.....but you will know what it is and your children will continue to thrive and blossom.
(and you know what Mimmy has really wobbled this week, and I started to panic about "doing in wrong" but I restabilised and am moving forward in confidence again.)
ps - if you read this far - I'm amazed too!!!!
Yes, on the days when my own sense of purpose/direction is less clear, whining etc can totally push me in crazy directions too! And after sitting through Barbie Princess Academy for the umpteenth time from the library we all suddenly started noticing and laughing at all the girls having teeny waists and the makeup, getting dressed up thing and the bitchiness and power crazed characters. This definitely bursts some of the bubble -- we talk about billboards/radio adverts etc when they come up, techniques used by the media, supermarkets etc -- PW and I also have loved watching a series by Michael Tsarian on youtube about the symbols used in the media and in the highstreet which has helped pass on some code-cracking skills to the kids.
DeleteIts good just to acknowledge that its not what it appears to be (I think I was very old when I figured this out for myself - when viakal or something actually didn't fizz to take the limescale off the plughole and i thought but on the tv it did?! really naive!) and that its actors and stories written by other humans etc! Not gospel truth or wisdom!
Glad this distracted you a little on Tuesday x hope all is healing well :)
Yes, the confidence thing and just holding your course for what works in this moment. Thanks for all that confirming x
I'll have to look up the youtube thing - sounds very interesting. I love working on being less control-able.
DeleteI really empathise with you. It can be so hard to strike an agreeable balance. This time round we are far less structured & have only 1 thing a day (reading/writing) which I wont avoid getting done. Everything else is automonous, but regardless we still have power struggles. It seems no matter what we do, theres always something. Today hasnt been the best.
ReplyDeleteThanks Crafty Bird :) Welcome by the way, haven't met you (in blogworld at least) before I don't think :)
DeleteI could have written this post as I have the exact same questions and power struggles! I think that kids are actually incredible at taking on board all kinds of conflicting ethos and ways of talking, acting etc from tv they have seen. This swings both ways. Sometimes what they learn is incredibly mature (beyond perhaps something I would/could have taught) and sometimes it's infantile or americanized and annoying. I truly think it all balances out in the end, even if there are periods of obsession along the way. I know that when i get all controlling the kids resist it and the house seems to get all tense and everyone starts policing everyone else. I feel the same about food.... sometimes we go through good phases as a family when we eat organic and natural foods only etc etc but then we'll also have a binge of coke-drinking for a couple of weeks, like we have here in Spain. I think the less they have to rebel aagainst, the less we make certain foods and activities illicit that will require a big backlash later. My hubby was raised as sugar-free wholefood veggie and in their teenage years him and his brothers lived on frozen pizzas and bottles of pepsi as a rebellion. Who knows maybe there was some minerals or energetic properties that they instinctively needed, like when a pregnant woman NEEDS some weird food right now or else. They now eat sensibly although none has gone as extreme as how they were raised. Do it wrong or do it right, it'll work out in the end if you stay open-hearted and open-minded, which you seem to be! x
ReplyDeleteYes totally agree on the policing thing!! It can set this air in the house of everyone dreaming up stringent/imagined rules for everyone else! Thanks for your thoughts on this, I really value it - I have also had that binge thing where I'm sick of my own rules and we cracked open all the Easter eggs at once and just went for it. And these moments are lush when the mood is right. So they know I can, I'm not a completely crazed hippie nazi... and a lot of it is out of fear which it feels important to name. Yes it goes in phases. My new mantra is 'let the small things go' which has helped a bit. I think the pregnancy is affecting my jumpiness and inability to deal with some influences!!! And breathe.... ! Bet its warmer down there than it is here ?!! x
DeleteThere's a reason that each child has a particular parent and vice versa, I think. You really will find what is best - and maybe that will be different for elderflower than it is for blackberry etc. I think our D does better with media exposure and computer time than M does, for example. Sending you love xx
ReplyDeleteyep, hear you, thanks x
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