A friend just had a post about her son's desire to have a pink bejewled play phone (she and the people who comment have great things to say: here it is so you can read it). Thinking about her post made me very glad that for girls 5 and under (which is all I have experienced lately) there is no toy that is off limits as far as I can tell.
Amanda's favorite toys are trains (although she doesn't play with them the way some of her boy friends do. I think Chanson's kids would play well with her version of trains). Her favorite movie is Cars. Her favorite TV show is Bob the Builder. No one in her life (relatives, friends, teachers) tells her that she can't enjoy all of these things. On the other hand, she likes to play with all these things while she is dressed as a princess...
In Eleanor's class, everyone's favorite thing to do is woodworking, both girls and boys. The only mathematicians she knows are women, so she expects to do well in math as well as reading. However, when I asked her if there were any toys boys wouldn't play with, she immediately knew that boys didn't play with dolls. I think as boys get older, they are definitely limited in what they can explore, and that seems sad and worth changing. It is also sad that there is makeup and fancy hair do products marketed towards 5 year olds---can't that wait a few years?
(On a side note, some have suggested that this is because male is the default gender: of course everyone would like to be a boy, but why would you want to be like a girl unless you had to? I still need to think about this some more.)
I am reminded of a few things the friendly neighborhood developmental psychologist has told me (and she can tell me if I'm getting this right). First, one of our jobs as parents is to teach our kids to navigate our culture and to fit in with their peer group in a healthy way. In our culture, that means boys wear pink at their peril, whether we like it or not.
On the other hand, she has told me that kids do actually pick up values from their parents more than (or at least as much as) their peers. So perhaps while we help our kids learn what society expects from them today, we enable them to develop their own character and change what will be expected from their children.
Amanda's favorite toys are trains (although she doesn't play with them the way some of her boy friends do. I think Chanson's kids would play well with her version of trains). Her favorite movie is Cars. Her favorite TV show is Bob the Builder. No one in her life (relatives, friends, teachers) tells her that she can't enjoy all of these things. On the other hand, she likes to play with all these things while she is dressed as a princess...
In Eleanor's class, everyone's favorite thing to do is woodworking, both girls and boys. The only mathematicians she knows are women, so she expects to do well in math as well as reading. However, when I asked her if there were any toys boys wouldn't play with, she immediately knew that boys didn't play with dolls. I think as boys get older, they are definitely limited in what they can explore, and that seems sad and worth changing. It is also sad that there is makeup and fancy hair do products marketed towards 5 year olds---can't that wait a few years?
(On a side note, some have suggested that this is because male is the default gender: of course everyone would like to be a boy, but why would you want to be like a girl unless you had to? I still need to think about this some more.)
I am reminded of a few things the friendly neighborhood developmental psychologist has told me (and she can tell me if I'm getting this right). First, one of our jobs as parents is to teach our kids to navigate our culture and to fit in with their peer group in a healthy way. In our culture, that means boys wear pink at their peril, whether we like it or not.
On the other hand, she has told me that kids do actually pick up values from their parents more than (or at least as much as) their peers. So perhaps while we help our kids learn what society expects from them today, we enable them to develop their own character and change what will be expected from their children.
Comments
Much more to say about gender, toys, peers, etc, but I have to go!
Love,
Steph
(Disclaimer: I wish I had known this 40 years ago...)
Good to know I've picked something up from you over the years. See, a PhD in psychology can actually be applied to raising real children! If you want to tell me what psychology says about those things, call me and I might be able to post about them for you.
Hi Danlj!
I wonder if the psychologists have measured the differences in parental influence based on parenting style? I am definitely glad that we can continue to learn from our parents, although I am reminded of something else the FNDP said: we all mess our children up in our own ways. I suppose that not repeating the particular mistakes of our parents is progress, even if we make our own mistakes.
I do think that over all you did a good job with your family, despite any specific shortcomings you recognize today.
But yeah, the authoritative parenting style (warmth/caring/responsiveness combined with structure/rules with explanations) seems to be the best overall. Then we also know that the effectiveness of various socialization techniques varies by the child's temperament. So a more timid child might respond to gentle influence (even a disappointed look from a parent or perhaps a request); but a more willful child will be most easily influenced when there is an especially warm relationship where the child is striving to please the parent and will be good to maintain that good relationship (that disappointed look will only work if they know you really care).
Back to grading psych papers...
Love, FNDP
I'm curious: do all parents want their kids to be like them? The smoking comment made me remember that parents can influence their kids in ways that I might think are harmful, but that the parents might think are perfectly alright. There might be caring, authoritative parents convincing their children gently to do "bad" things...