I’ve never really been the conventional type of mom. I’m not strict. Well now I’m not, but when my kids were younger I made sure to teach them about right and wrong… so now that they’re older, they know the drill. I also let my kids do what they want… more on that later in this post. I tend to swear when I’m pissed off. Unfortunately I do that when I’m driving and most of the time my kids are my passengers.
Let them do what they want? Yes. I don’t impose bedtimes. They can play video games even during weeknights. I tell them I don’t care if they sleep with the Playstation, as long as they wake up at 5am to get ready for school. I helped them study until about 2nd or 3rd grade and by 4th grade they were completely on their own. While I stress the importance of education, I don’t really pressure my kids to get honors. I’m like, if you want to go for it go, if not it’s okay… just make sure your grades are decent. By decent, I don’t mean passable. I define decent as something like above 80% or a B. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I’m no longer hung up on making sure they go to specific schools when it comes to college. As long as they can fulfill my requirement of decent grades, they can pretty much do whatever they want.
I may be lax when it comes to my parenting style but one thing I will never do is praise my kid for doing something NORMAL. I’m not going to say “Oh you ate your veggies / got dressed by yourself / did your homework / etc, I’m so proud of you!”. Good grief. Nobody will think you’re great for doing NORMAL things in the real world.
When my son or daughter shows me something he/she did, I would be the first to praise it if it were good. I would also be the first to criticize it if it were not up to par. I’m not here to encourage my kids to be mediocre. I’m not afraid to take say a piece of writing and say that it sucks. I don’t want to raise entitled and overly sensitive humans who can’t take negative feedback. Coddling kids isn’t helping them. It’s setting them up for a world of disappointment when they finally realize that wow, I wasn’t as great as they said I was. They have to know early on that failure is a part of life and everybody fails at some point. The important thing is being able to get up and give things another go afterwards.
I’m not saying that what I’m doing is foolproof. In fact, I’m not encouraging people to do what I do. Sometimes I think I may be too lax or unmindful… too “whatever” in terms of attitude. I’m sure there are better ways. But so far this works for us — and that’s the most important thing.
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Our parenting style is similar, Miss Ro. You are not alone. My mom sometimes tells me that I am too lax. Sabi ko sa kanya, bahala ang mga anak kong dumiskarte at hindi naman ako nagkukulang sa panggabay. I think we are not lax. We just want our kids to be self-directed and have their own identity.
Yes I don’t believe in spoon feeding, I let them make their own decisions so they can better realize that everything they choose to do (example, sleep very late) will have consequences (they will have a hard time waking up for school).
We have similarities in parenting style. I also don’t pressure my kids to finish every school year with honors. As long as their grades are okey, that’s it. What matters most to me and my husband are the right values and life skills. Now that our eldest is almost a teenager, ang lagi naming paalala sa kanya piliin ang tamang kaibigan at maging open sa amin, palakwento naman sya kaya ok lang.
Thank you for not raising snowflakes. The real world is so cruel. It is good to toughen them up at home.