OUR FAMILIES AND THEIR CHILDREN – PART I

The Parent Muddle

When their first child is born, parents are ecstatic but often clueless. The most import job in the world is in the hands of the least skilled. We need to remind ourselves that parenting is a learned skill. Unfortunately there is limited training available for parents, so, the only training most parents get is the memories from their own childhood. As a result the onus is on the baby who must start parent education training.

To add to the muddle, parents tend to correct the problems of their childhood by doing the exact opposite for their own child. Parents of rigid parents become excessively permissive and parents of permissive parents become overly rigid. Mostly, each parent has one hard, fast and wrong opinion on child raising.

The Community Muddle

There is an endless supply of child rearing know-how in every community. These opinions are found with experts, agencies, school boards, clinics, etc. etc.

There are two problems:

• Each family is unique
  
• Each resource is unique
  

These two problems lead to two more problems:

• No family can figure out who’s best
  
• The resources can’t seem to cooperate
  

The result is that families are either on their own or they opt for one fix for most problems (the current craze is a drug prescription). The problem with that is that child rearing continues as a shot-in-the-dark. Is it any wonder that we have an epidemic of school, drug, eating, and sex problems in children?

With all these muddles, no wonder THE FAMILY CHALLENGE can be such a large obstacle. Share with us your viewpoint of these muddles by clicking on the “comment” button found below this blog.