Aren't Happy, Successful Children Everyone's Dream?

In a thoughtful New York Times article, "Raising Successful Children," author and practicing psychologist Madeline Levine offers some poignant advice about striking the right balance between good practice and malpractice in parenting.  Levine makes a distinction between childhood 'happiness' and 'well-being,' and says that while most of us (I use 'us' because I'm a parent, too) would say we want our kids to be happy in life, what we really mean is we want them to be able cope with life's challenges with confidence.  "Life is difficult," Levine explains, "and the idea of keeping our children happy all the time -- that’s about over- parenting."  Thus, 'parenting malpractice' is any parenting action in which parents, in their efforts to protect their children from unpleasantness, cannot find the 'happy' median between being overly protective ... and overly permissive. 

 

The word 'malpractice' struck me as harsh.  There is something unethical or immoral sounding about the word; and, as I write this, I had to resist the urge to edit it out.  What won me over was the 'guilt' factor inherent in parenting.  Let's face it, when we make mistakes (which sometimes can be 'doozies' ), we do feel a little bit criminal, so maybe 'malpractice' is not really that far off the mark. 

 

One of the concepts that most resonated with me was this: “The happiest, most successful children have parents who do not do for them what they are capable of doing, or almost capable of doing, themselves.”  No doubt this would be true for the teachers in our schools, as well.  Even sadder, Levine points out, is when we do things for our kids that satisfy our own needs rather than the needs of our children themselves.  I'm reminded of the many years of dance classes I took my daughter to only to be told when she was 11 that, while she 'liked dancing OK, she hated performing.'  How can that be? I thought. She is an excellent dancer, and I love to watch her perform. 

Levine is firm that dealing with disappointment is essential to good health.  "The central task of growing up,” she says, “is to develop a sense of self that is autonomous, confident, and generally in accord with reality.”  Over-parenting, which includes unnecessary monitoring and control, actually diminishes our children's confidence and distorts the reality of life.

But, let's be honest, it's painful to watch when our children make mistakes.  I didn't want my own children to 'suffer' when they were left out of a birthday party or didn't start in a soccer game.  If they misunderstood the directions to an assignment and got a poor grade, I wanted a 'do-over' -- for them, of course!   But, Levine is right, it is in this "gray area of 'just beyond the comfortable' where resilience is born.”  She points out that kids need small daily risks and disappointments for growth to take place.  We knew this when they were little and first started to walk.  We didn't pick them up every time they fell and protect them from any future disappointments or bumps.  We actually were amazed by them and took pleasure in the sheer determination it took for them to try, try, and try again. 

Levine claims if you can't stand to see your child cry, you got into the wrong business.   Kids need the opportunity for ‘successful failures' -- failures they can live with and grow from. "To shield them," Levine writes, "to deprive them of those challenges is to deprive them of the tools they will need to handle the inevitable, difficult, challenging and sometimes devastating demands of life.”  Better to remember the lessons of infancy, to allow them to resolve it themselves, and to amaze us with their resiliency as they once did.

There is a difference, Levine points out, between top-down parenting which focused on clear expectations...  and parental behavior which is controlling.  It's OK to insist that a child turn off the television and finish the math homework.  It's not OK to tell a child what to feel and how to resolve that feeling.  Pushing, bribing, probing, implanting, which always come the outside, (i.e. from the parent) are malpractice because "the child never has the opportunity to craft an inside.”

“A loving parent is warm, willing to set limits and unwilling to breach a child’s psychological boundaries by invoking shame or guilt,” Levine concludes. It’s also vital that parents set a good example in their own lives. “One of the most important things we do for our children is to present them with a version of adult life that is appealing and worth striving for.”

 

“RaisingSuccessful Children” by Madeline Levine in TheNew York Times, and "Teach Your Children Well': An Interview With Psychologist and Author Madeline Levine" in The Huffington Post.

History Speaks: Rules for Teachers from the Past

Over this past summer, during the revision the new webpage, I stumbled upon the 'Rules for Teachers' that I am going to share with you below.  I loved reading them!  They were compelling, but I didn't know quite what to do with them. 

Until I attended a transportation meeting at Amity High School with all of our Orange bus drivers.  Before the meeting began, Mr. Chris Winkle and I started a conversation that wandered into his telling me his mother had been a teacher at Mary L. Tracy until 1923 when she had married his father and been forced to quit teaching.  I instantly recalled 'the rules' I had found.  Both sets of rules below, 1872's and 1915's, dismissed women who married from the profession. 

Being a teacher myself, my heart broke a little to hear Mr. Winkle say his mother was forced to give up this most rewarding profession when she chose to be a wife and mother.  But, on second thought, I reasoned, at least she could take her time when getting an ice cream downtown!

The Academy, built 1812, is the present day site

of the Orange Historical Society

1915 Rules for Teachers

1. You will not marry during the term of your contract.
2. You are not to keep company with men.
3. You must be home between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. unless attending a school function.
4. You may not loiter downtown in ice cream stores.
5. You may not travel beyond the city limits unless you have the permission of the Chairman of the Board.
6. You may not ride in a carriage or automobile with any man unless he is your father or brother.
7. You may not smoke cigarettes.
8. You may not dress in bright colors.
9. You may under no circumstances dye your hair.
10. You must wear at least two petticoats.
11. Your dresses must not be any shorter than two inches below the knee.
12. To keep the school room neat and clean, you must: sweep the floor at least once daily, scrub the floor at least once a week with hot soapy water, clean the blackboards at least once a day and start the fire at 7 a.m. so the room will be warm by 8 a.m.

Rules for Teachers 1872

1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys.
2. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day’s session.
3. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.
4. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings per week if they go to church regularly.
5. After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.
6. Women teachers who marry will be dismissed.
7. Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.
8. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity, and honesty.
9. The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.