Ok, I'm not a parent, and I make efforts not to become one yet everyday
When it happens though, the whole purpose of my life will be to raise the best kids I can. I'm also not going to do the more life threatening types of raceing while the kids dependent on my support.
Very interesting this child raiseing, and I think about this sort of thing everyday. Increadibly difficult and complex choices.
I think figureing out what the "right call" is while being a parent is extremely challenging. A powerful conflict of sheltering urges and obligation to dicipline them for mutual bennifit is a delicate and akward ballence to find.
Now, personally, I have little to no experience with anything beyond the childs point of view on situations. But perhaps I can provide help from this limited perspective.
When I was 2 (not a typo, 2 years old), I was an avid reader, as is my mother. We would read anything and everything imaginable together, she would read outloud to me when words and things that I wasnt able to read came up. I would ask her (if she didnt beat me to it) the defination of every word I didnt know, and she patiently would answer until my query was satisfied.
We had no TV. My parents forbid me even to play video games when I was at other kids houses. My parents had a 1:1 rule with me for books, for every fiction book I checked out, I had to check out one non-fiction. My parents were very poor (not currently the case
) when I was in elementry school (my fathers father died trying to help save some people on a boat in the Columbia river and drown himself, this left the family bussiness in shambles). My dad would work about 14hrs a day, but when he was home, he would still go and work on projects with me in the garage every spare minute he got. I think that simply not haveing a TV to steal parents time away from there kids is REALLY important. We made pretty much anything we could dream up together, catapults (we told mom it was a pitching machine
), go-karts, mini-bikes, go-kart engine builds, tree forts, chemistry experiments, pretty much anything that interested me he would somehow get the parts so we could build it together. He BUILT from scrap parts, my very own stick welder for me when I was in 2nd grade. That welder still works. Not having TV to suck out the spare time in life definately impacted me as a kid, and i hugely impacted my relationship and the level of respect I had for my parents.
I remember knowing a few things as a kid, one was that my mom and dad were the most awsome cool smartest people in the world. I also always knew that if I did something wrong, that I would really really regret it, even if it just meant my dad saying this dreaded phrase to me "Luke, I'm very dissapointed in your actions", or my mom saying my first and middle name ohh man, just typing it sends shivers of fear down my spine still and im 24. I would get spanked if I lied or disobeyed them, then I would get my little book case (the only thing in my room besides a bed) taken out and moved into the hall. Then I would be not allowed to leave my room (besides bathroom) or make any noise for however long they felt like I deserved. Always felt like all day, and it would give me hours to think about whatever I did that they didnt like.
Something that was really important I think was having my parents explain to me that I move my own arms and legs. They taught me that I have to CHOOSE to do, or to not do things. They never just said "dont do blah blah" they would say, "if you do blah blah, this is what happens as a result, and then explained to me why" then they would ask, "so, is that something want to do or not?" if it was something I aught not to do, and I said "yes", then they would say, "ok, you get the rest of the day in your room with no bookshelf to think over that decision". Though I was increadibly stubborn, I would generally tell them that I changed my mind before the end of the day was up. Once I had told them that I wouldnt do something, if I did it, it was lying to them, which was a very serious offense.
I never got my mouth washed out with soap, or tabasco'd (hehe, now I would love getting a free mouthfull of tabasco, I drink the stuff
). I respected my parents more than anything in the world, and I really was terrified of what would happen if I disobeyed or lied to them, so as a general rule of thumb, I avoided that unless I thought it was absolutely nessicary, or thought I could get away with it without being caught
Church was also something we did every sunday that dad didnt have to work through. I wish they would have taught me about god 1 on 1 with the bible however, because I remember being turned off from churches from sunday school teachers and things never being able to supply answers for my questions. This caused me to secretly stop truely beliveing in god by about jr.high when I started thinking that science actually had most of the basic things in life figured out and explained.... I'm ashamed to admit it, but it took me 3 years of very advanced college before I actually realized the obvious about god again, which is of course that we are undoubtably created by him, and that he loves us. During that period inbetween, I found the flaws of the churches themselves, and the often corupt humans that operated them to be more evidence to me that god wasnt real. High level physics and science lead me back after it became quite clear that life and the universe was created by god, not any of the hokey-pokey BS that sounds beliveable to most typical non-high level science/physics folks. I think its crucial that you talk to your kids personally about god, and that its their personal and private relationship with him that matters, not just sitting in church on sunday.
Most of all, set a loving, respectful, consistant example with your own behavior.
I think the single biggest favor you can do a kid is to toss out the home TV set. Not just because it keeps him from watching the pointless crap on TV when they should be reading or building or drawing etc, but because I keeps YOU the parent from watching TV when you should be reading with, drawing with, cooking with, or whatever with your kid. You might think its too much to sacrifice your TV watching for the first few weeks, but after that, the people I have talked into doing it find they have never been less depressed and happy about life. They also find that they have time for all sorts of projects and hobbies that seemed impossible before. I used to think TV was ok if you only watched an occasional educational type show, but the reality is, books and the internet is a way better use of your time for learing things, and as a bonus, not all science books/articles are written with a retarded chimp in mind as the target audience, where as TV science shows tend to have that trend.
So, wow, I typed a whole bunch of stuff. I dont know what any of its worth to anyone since I'm not a parent, I pretty much just poured my soul out and roughly tried to stay on topic.
I hope something in that will be helpful to you, and I will try to stick to science related threads in the future.
