I came across this article and was reminded how much I admire dignity and character in a person. These are ephemeral qualities, hard to describe or measure, but easy to recognize. The question arises, can these qualities be cultivated? Can I do something now so that my children grow up to be dignified adults with character?
As suggested in the article, George Washington sought to change external habits to “shape inner morals”. Certain acts define graciousness or dignity, and a place to start would be to ensure my children always do them whether they want to or not; simple things such as greeting people, and saying proper goodbyes.
The other aspect of dignity is mysteriousness, or rather restraint in what personal information you reveal to others. In this age of Facebook, when all our friends are intent on telling us everything from what they ate for lunch to what Crayola Crayon they are, restraint seems like a much harder thing to teach kids to value. Add to that our pop-culture where the society is obsessed with the worst of people, and value of dignity becomes even harder to teach. After all, the people who acted insanely during the health-care reform town-hall meetings got to come on TV and express their opinions, whereas nobody noticed the people who asked reasonable questions.
The other problem the ubiquity of so called “real people”, with the help of TV and other media, creates the feeling that it is fine to behave in an undignified manner because others are doing it too. Milgram proved with his social experiments that people are capable of doing nasty things just because other people are doing them as well. The way current pop-culture is going, there are no good role models left for children. Maybe the thing to do is to actively cultivate friendship with the type of people that can be good role models for my kids. Then they can do what the “crowd” does.
As far as building character goes, a major contributing factor is hardship in childhood. In comfortable middle-class families like ours, hardship is hard to come by. What parent wants to deliberately put their kids through hardship? As a friend said, “it is crazy that you are worried about lack of lack”. The other ingredient for character seems to be strict discipline. Discipline is a hardship, in the sense that kids aren’t allowed to just do what they want. We parents however are overloaded with too much information about how to achieve discipline. Should the children be paid for doing chores? If punishing for bad behavior too negative, then isn’t rewarding for good behavior same as bribing? How much praise is too much?
What is a parent to do?
Raising kids in a non-native environment while constantly worrying about striking the right balance.
4 comments:
Those are great questions u've asked! I struggle with the answers all the time.
As far as dignity is concerned, it is a great trait to possess and I always emphasize that to my daughter. Hopefully, the significant amounts of time that she spends with people who embody those traits compared to the little amount of time she spends in front of the idiot box will have an effect on her.
But I also worry a little about what was said in the George Washington article that u posted. I feel that dignity should not come at the cost of hiding one's emotions to the extent that u are not able to share it even with ur loved ones.
With regards to putting kids to hardship, here are a few strategies that I 'try' to follow. Creating environments where they fail is a strategy that even educational researchers have promoted. So, simple things like having her, own 'her problems' and try to come up with a solution on her own, seems to offer some opportunities. But I'm looking for more strategies on this.
Discipline - tough topic. I constantly struggle with it. But these days I've decided that even if it comes at the cost of her thinking of me as a nagging mom, I'll keep at at :).
Why did I ever think that parenting is all about loving ur kids and being loved ? :)
You know Gayathri, the one thing I have come away with all the parenting books that I have read is that it is all about loving your kids! The key is to love them without regard to what the child does or says, but to stand firm about your rules. Beyond that it comes down to the details of how you go about enforcing your rules. Discipline without love, and love without discipline are both recipes for disaster.
Indu, what you say is absolutely true.
And I don't think that emphasizing discipline should come at the cost of loving your kids. What I meant to say was that before I became a parent, I didn't realize how much work parenting would be :)
A beautiful post! Relevant dilemmas too. Isnt that what life is all about, even to us parents? That you know some, then you figure out some more, then you dont know a lot more..
I believe a large part of my job as a parent is authenticity. I wear my heart on my sleeve. Everytime. I ask my children questions all the time such as - how would 'you' feel if someone did this to you? What do 'you' think of the media? What is right? How could this be wrong? And about fairness - Is it fair that we live in a 4 bedroom house when you have seen some children in India in shacks? Can 'you' do something about it? We talk about materialism, world history, empathy, poverty - out of these, perhaps some of your own deepest character will be made transparent to them. I am a big believer in "quantity" time with kids.
Some of your children's traits will make your heart swell with pride, some that will make you frown but they will bond you together in such a deep deep way.
It isnt simple, this beautiful job of parenting. But the biggest reward is that out of this, we too will grow along with the little ones.
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