My approach so far (4 months) has been largely ignoring the internet, not talking to other parents, playing it by ear, letting my wife take the lead, and enjoying the process.
This is the approach I've always had in mind to take with my future children. I hope they can have similarly successful results.
Any big learnings you found during the process which you didn't anticipate starting out? I'm always interested in different perspectives and experiences in raising children.
Just out of curiosity, Have you raised kids into adulthood (or at least late adolescence), or is this based on your understanding of how kids "should" be raised?
I have three kids: 4,6, and 8. We read a lot of books when our oldest was born...and learned that most advice is not based on much. Each of our kids is very different, stratiges that worked well with one failed completely with another. We have consistently adapted our approach with a focus on maintaining trust and teaching our "family rule" to be kind to yourself and others. It's hard work.
I'm just curious how many commenters in this thread have children themselves? It would be interesting to see a poll showing the split between parents/non-parents.
Unlike my parents. I have the opportunity to help coach my daughter's soccer team, to read to them each night, to choose from a number of extracurricular activities that we can afford, and attend parent-teacher conferences. Does that mean my wife and I devote more to our children than our parents? Most likely not.
Across generations, we're all struggling to be the best parents we can, even if the methods look very different.
I really enjoyed this post. In fact, this philosophy is behind not only the way I treat myself, but the way I parent my children. Treating them as human beings instead of little people "growing into adults" has proven to help me in more situations than I can count.
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