It’s not our job to toughen up our children to face a cruel and heartless world. It’s our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.

L.R. Knost

After spending as many years working in childcare as I did, I had the privilege of getting to know many different families and see many different parenting styles. I saw what worked short term and what worked long term. I also saw plenty of what didn’t work. I took little snippets of all of the things I got to watch, as well as how I was raised to create the philosophy I have as far as child development is concerned. I also have a degree in Early Childhood Education and Development, so apart from my personal views there is an education back there too.

That brings me to my little soapbox rant today. I spend a good amount of time on social media. It is what it is, and I try to make it a learning wholesome experience. With the things I follow, there are also the others… my main focus of this post being TikTok. I follow a lot of gardeners, homesteaders, and the like, and I really enjoy learning and getting new ideas to try. What I don’t enjoy, and what makes my heart sad is watching parents be their child’s first bully. In the past couple weeks I have seen repeated videos of children having meltdowns, parents spraying them with water bottles, snatching the children’s toys just to see their reaction, and the one that really set me off this morning- a mom taking her toddler’s favorite stick and breaking it to see her reaction. It wasn’t good. She was absolutely devastated and everyone in the video was laughing. Imagine if you will, a world were we emotionally traumatize our children for TikTok views… Also imagine if you will, this little girl growing up thinking it is acceptable to mean and then laugh at someone else’s heartbreak.

Little Songes

Children are the greatest sponges! They watch the world around them and they mimic it with perfection. The actions they see, the words they hear, the responses they receive. That means that we, the adults in their world, need to be worth mimicking…. right?

This doesn’t mean we have to be perfect at all times. That is impossible and the pressure of that would be out of this world! What it means is we need to normalize being kind to everyone around us, including our children. If we are wrong, we need to apologize. If we step out of line, we need to own it and take responsibility of our actions to our children. Nobody is perfect, but if we show our children how we properly handle ourselves when we are wrong, they will begin to do the same. If we approach our children with empathy, kindness, and understanding, we will get it back from them.

My Personal Experience

My oldest daughter is a handful. I mean that in the most loving way ever, but she gives me a run for my money every single day and pushes buttons I didn’t even know I possessed! She needs constant guidance and reminders about what is appropriate and what is not. We re-direct her a lot, send her out to run with our dogs (win-win they both come inside with half the energy they left with!) and as an absolute last result, we will do time outs. I am not a fan of time outs, because in my opinion if we seclude our children when they are experiencing big emotions, they will view their feelings as shameful or wrong. Time outs come in our family when things are about to spiral out of control, and I will be completely honest they are more for me than her. Sometimes I need to re-group and take a deep breath so that I can remain in a place of positive guidance. Guess what? I tell her that. I tell her I need a break and we can talk about it in a few minutes. She asks me now when I am getting frustrated if I need a break, and it makes me smile every time. The answer is usually yes…

Something else we do with our oldest is we try with all our might to catch her following directions, being kind, or doing something on her own like clean up toys or help with the animals. Children will live up to your expectations of them so if you think they are “bad” kids, they will be. It takes a lot of effort on some days, but there is at least something your child does during the day that you can offer them praise for. You may have to look really hard, but it’s there.

I had a super proud mama moment a few weeks ago, and I got to see our hard work come back to us. My daughter’s class got a new student and they were all so excited about it. After the new student’s first day, I asked my daughter if she had gotten a chance to talk with her, and she said she had. She also showed her where to get her lunch, which playground toys they were allowed to use, and where the bathroom was. My heart was so full that day! All the days we spend teaching and showing and demonstrating had paid off.

Goals

Sometimes I think as parents, we forget that we aren’t raising kids. Well we are, but they won’t stay kids. They grow up so essentially we are raising adults. If we set our children up with the tools they need to succeed, they will have a much easier time as teens and adults. These tools are things such as strong work ethic, responsibility, kindness, compassion, empathy, and tender hearts.

This doesn’t mean I want our daughters to “do as they are told” although my days would be much smoother if they would! I have no desire to raise our daughters to “obey”. I want them to ask questions, and form their own opinions, as long as they do it respectfully. I want them to always stand up for what is right, even if they stand alone. To do this, they need to see my husband and I moving through life doing the same.

We need to normalize being nice to our children, and we need to move away from being our children’s first bully. My vow to you is that if your child is alone on the playground, my children will come play with them.

~Tara