Distance versus intimacy in child raising

Sandy Hunter English 101 CRN# 62413 Geoff Johnson December 14, INTIMACY VS DISTANCE INTRODUCTION: From the day one of birth, every child beginsto learn the world and begins to live. Nevertheless, we adults call them ‘ playing’. Is life a play matter? Certainly Not. Unfortunately, we consider the physical well being of the kids alone as the chief predictor of life. Emotional and intellectual well being is given back seat in our child rearing methodology. While giving very little importance to emotional well being of the children, we brazenly assume an idiotic role in nurturing our children’s intellectual well being. We thrust our intellectual prudence in to the brains of our children. To emphasize the psychological well being of children, the arguments made by two authors namely, Lisa Firestone and Steve Nelson are now taken for debate. Although both the authors want the parents to focus on the emotional aspects of their children, they differ in the execution modality. Firestone advocates an attentive caring on children in her essay How To Raise an Emotionally Healthy Child. However, Nelson encourages an autonomous style of living for children in his essay Leave Your Child Alone. To reach the focal point of robust child rearing, both the authors traverse in two opposite directions. FIRESTONE SUMMARY Lisa Firestone asserts through her essay that communication is the key to understanding the way children respond with their emotions. She claims that parents should be aware of emotional problems that can go untreated. For example, when television, video games or excessive eating to cope with emotions such as fear, anger, or anxiety that they might be avoiding overly consumes a child. Firestone’s rational on the subject is directed to children that regress rather than progress and challenge unpleasant emotions. She also proposes parents to intervene to help children address the source of unwanted feelings and what to do with them. This can be seen when a kid throws a temper tantrum at a grocery store when they are not getting what they want such as a candy bar instead of approaching this situation with insensitive methods she suggests a parent ask the child what is the reason for their actions and why they are so upset by doing so you can avoid scenes such as these by getting to view the child perspective. Firestone’s train of though for this idea is that children have a different way of expressing their emotions that may not be in any relation to the actual immediate circumstance. According to Firestone if a parent is well aware of mental illness they have a better chance of assessing what should be done. When acknowledging an existing issue such as anxiety of going to school this could be a chance were parents could open communication and help reduce it. When looking at the thought process of Firestone’s notion I can see where being conscious of children’s mental illness there are ways to alleviate some by acting accordingly and start a plan to defer the situation. NELSON SUMMARY Steve Nelson argues that by permitting distance of parenting a child will better develop their own self-discovery. He claims that parents that are concerned with their academic success they are leaving no room for children to do what children to best, be kids. This is a prime example of when children are placed in after school activities that can reassure their acceptation into a prestigious college in the future by doing so they are removing the time of curiosity and discovery. The rational behind this idea is that kids are having less and less time to do things that are important in the development stages of childhood. He also asserts that parents are to concerned that their children are overly protected and can develop into dependency problems in the future. For example when a child is scared and their guardian comes to the rescue and when this dilemma reoccurs and their parents are no were in sight they might simply shut down and deal with it in a more damaging way. The logic behind Nelson’s ideology is that by hovering and not allowing children to experience their own ways of coping there is really no way that they can develop their own process of dealing with reality. He argues that by creating an environment where children can come to you for guidance is a better way to reinforce an outlet where if they need help they will go to you in a safe place to evaluate the issue. This notion is an example of when a child is dealing with stressful situations they know that they can turn to their parent in a safe place where they can gauge the matter and analyze what can be done and what is the source. The cognitive process of this by Nelson is he has imagined a sort of safe haven for a child to feel safe and acknowledge that their parent is making time to help with a situation that they otherwise felt they couldn’t deal with themselves. EVIDENCE BASED COMMON POINTS While disclosing the current plight of children, Nelson expresses his concern over the over-protection and over-programming out of success-obsession. Likewise, Firestone points out that the parents of today pay more attention towards the behavior of their children rather than their feeling. Similarly, both the authors categorically state that psychologically stable parents alone bring their children with due care towards their emotional well-being. Both the authors invariably discourage sticking on to dry and steadfast rules by parents. Firestone cautions defensive reaction at the time of parental erring would cause much damage. Nelson enlists a set of the so-called ‘ bad’ aspects such as bad mistakes, stupid choices, and unreasonable fits of passion as the requirement of human development. According to Lisa Firestone, qualitative time spending with children is much more important than quantitative time spending. Nelson puts the same forth in a suggestive tone. He suggests skiing and late dinner to be casual and natural. The main common points are based on the same ideology of having the children’s best interest in mind. Both Firestone and Nelson push for addressing children’s emotional well-being. The same goes for how they agree that parents are either distracted or focused on the wrong things such as physical health, accelerating academics and extracurricular activities while they forget about their child’s emotional stability. Both assert that parents should insure the need to be balanced themselves otherwise this could cause actions to be projected on to their child’s response. DIFFERENT POINTS IF ANY While viewing their common points one must refer to their arguments differences. Firestone suggests the need for parents to be more involved with their children’s lives while Nelson suggests an entirely opposite notion that parents should allow distance to permit kids to build better self-resilience. She also wants parents to support their children through open communication with one another whereas Nelson argues for parents to let children support themselves such as when a child has a messy room and then realizes he or she cannot find a specific item they desire to play with, this can trigger emotions such as frustration and anger, in this case they learn they should clean their room to avoid feeling helpless the next time they are in search of belongings. Finally, Firestone’s approach implies more waiting and watching the child yet Nelson’s approach is to create an environment where the child will come to the parent if they are in need of guidance. COLLECTIVE VALUE AND LARGER MESSAGE Although both these writers have the same notion of having the children’s best interest at heart by addressing their psychological health whereas their approach to the issue are two extreme methods of applying closeness versus distance. While all this is proposed with their techniques in the right place they are trying to reach the same result, children’s stable minds. Steve Nelson has elegantly stated, “ Children, like unlabeled wild flowers, will blossom early or late in myriad brilliant and subtle colors if we just give them time and support.” Lisa Firestone has elaborately expanded this last word ‘ support’ in to a great essay. Thus, both of them have reached the focal point of robust child rearing though by traversing in opposite directions.