Dr Saheb Sahu, FAAP
I am a retired pediatrician (children’s doctor). I have some interest in child development and try to keep up with the literature. Few days ago I read a book titled: How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes by Melinda Wenner Moyer, contributing editor of Scientific Americana. In the book Moyer probes the research on how to encourage children to be generous, honest, helpful and kind. Here are some of her main points.
1- Talk to your children about feelings-yours, theirs, and everybody’s. Tie your children’s actions to their effects on other people.
2- Model kindness and generosity yourself.
3- Encourage your children to try fun, challenging activities. Don’t let them immediately quit.
4-Praise for efforts, not skills or smarts. Use rewards sparingly.
5- Lying and swearing are normal, but it helps to model the behavior you seek. React calmly when your children lie or swear.
6- Tell your children you love them unconditionally and don’t put too much pressure on them to achieve.
7-Let them fail. Failure is an essential part of learning and growing.
8- Educate yourself about race and racism, sexism, gender, religion, class and other biases and reflect upon your own biases. Explicitly talk to children about these issues. Expose them to diverse group of people and ideas.
9- Research suggest that it is better for children, when parents are warm and responsive but set clear limits-espousing a parenting style known as authoritative parenting. This approach differs from authoritarian parenting in which parents discourage negotiation and are quick to punish.
10- Try to treat each child equally, but do not worry too much about making things exactly the same for them. Try not comparing children to each other. Be a mediator and not an arbitrator in sibling fights.
11- Answer questions about sex honestly and clearly and don’t fret if you mess up- you can revisit them later. Talk to them about sexting, pornography, and sexuality and gender stereotypes from young age.
12-Create a family media plan. As much as possible, use screens with your children, and talk to them about what they are doing and seeing. Parents themselves should model healthy screen use. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time at all for children until 18 to 24 months, except video chart, and an hour or less of screen time for children 2 to five years of age.
Conclusion
Raising children is hard. It is mostly an art with some science behind it. It is also constantly changing as it should. A child to grow as a successful adult depends on multiple factors: genetic, education and income of the parents, love and affection of the extended family, teachers and friends and some opportunity at right time (what we call luck) in her or his life. In a survey by the Parents Magazine (USA) in 2020, 75% of the parents wished that their child should grow up to be a kind person rather than a successful one. Being Kind is good!
Source:
Melinda Wenner Moyer, How to Raise Kids Who Are Not Assholes. Science –based strategies for better parenting from tots to teens. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 20121