Parents' Project - From Ideal Child to Ideal Man (Part1)

Nowadays everyone seems to be aware of the power of thought. Many progressive parents know that an action starts in the mind first. When pondering on parents' project to raise a child parents have thoughts and ideas on how they will do it. Most people get their first ideas on parenting from their own parents. They have images of who the child is supposed to be as a child and who the child is supposed to become as an adult. Those ideal images of a child and an adult are ideal because they live in the mind of the parent. When it comes to reality, in most cases, the real child, or real adult, which the child is supposed to become, are far from "ideal."

The main quality of an ideal child is dependence. A child is born weak and helpless. Therefore parents are there for him: to care, to help, to teach, and to lead. The child is supposed to follow. In most cases, though, the real child resists and doesn't want to follow. When parents face such a mismatch they try hard to fix the real child to fit their ideal image of a child. In the best case scenario parents reach their goal and the real child becomes obedient and a well -mannered dependent child, as he or she is supposed to be as children. The problem comes later, when it is time to become an adult.

The main quality of an ideal adult is independence. An adult is supposed to make his own decisions in life and those decisions are hopefully the right ones. For that purpose an adult must have already developed a set of proven criteria for judging what is right and what is wrong. However, a child who was taught to be dependent will not be able to develop that criteria. That is why it is unrealistic to expect a child to become independent overnight, after the child's 18th birthday. He cannot make decisions, because his parents made them for him during his childhood. So the drama continues. Now parents look to fix the real grown up child to fit their image of an independent adult. But fixing the grown up is harder and parents give up, stating that their grown up is responsible for now for his own life. In the best case scenario the grown up child will find his own sources to cope with his life. But sometimes it takes twenty or more years, if not longer, for a person to finally become independent.

If parents learn this lesson they give up attempts of fixing their real child to fit their ideals. Instead, they change their ideal image of a child to match the ideal image of an adult. Independence, the quality of being an adult, becomes the quality of the child, expressed in its internal striving for independence, striving for freedom.

How to reach this goal? How to raise an independent child? The answers will come in following articles.

Why people have children

There are many reasons why people have children: because children represent the future and they are a source of pride; because parents want to pass on their genes and have heirs; because of the desire to experience parenthood or to feel like a family, not just like a couple. Sometimes children are seen as a source of future financial support for their retired parents, sort of an old-age security. Some mothers feel their biological clocks ticking. There are religious reasons as well. No matter how many personal reasons, or no reasons at all exist, people will still look for the answer to this question.

Even those who already have children still wonder why people have children. In this case they do not look for reasons. They look for the meaning. What is the meaning of having children? At first glance it may seem that reason and meaning are the same. Reasons listed above are more tangible, practical, and even selfish. The meaning of having children is philosophical, intangible, and spiritual. Reasons push. Meaning draws.

Why do people have children? Because children bring joy, that is why!

In the beginning it may appear as selfish joy, which is okay, when we want a baby: to hold, to touch, to smell the baby's milky soft skin, to look at a miracle of life. Then the sleepless nights and endless care-giving chores put the idealistic picture of having a baby into the realm of dedication to a child, and require the work of soul. For those parents who are able to experience the excitement of overcoming selfishness and are able to reach mutual connectedness with the soul of their child, this experience is unforgettable and worth all the efforts. In an online forum a father, who didn't think he even liked children, made a comment, that the moment he saw his sons he couldn't "get enough of them." Having kids for him was a "transformative, amazing, incredible" experience, where "all your worst qualities (and your best) being played out in front of you." He wrote, "I love them, and I love the father that I am with them. Having kids makes me a better man."

People have children because children make them better men. Here is the joy and meaning of parenting.

Ideas are taken from Parenting For Everyone by Simon Soloveychik, Book Part1 chapter6.

Parenting information: regarding two types of parents

Parenting is the most contradictory and confusing subject of discussion. Each parent has their own opinion about it. Yet, there are clearly two groups of parents, which always argue with each other: yes-parents versus no-parents (or permissive versus authoritarian). They argue about the degree of external freedom allowed to children. But arguments continue even within each group because of the many other facets of the child-parent relationship. Some parents are confused by the different levels of extremes inside their own group and try to derive common sense by combining both theories. We would like to describe two other types of parents, who differ by their attitude toward children.

Children are interesting to parents of the first type. We will call these parents detny parents. When giving an apple to a child a detny parent would enjoy watching the child eat the apple.

All other parents look at children as objects for teaching. When giving an apple to a child such parents would watch to make sure the child says thank you. When meeting a school boy the only thing such parents would ask is "How are your grades?" (What else is there to talk about?) Detny parents, on the other hand, find plenty of topics to talk about to children, therefore they can talk to them for hours and never get bored.

Detny parents don't consider themselves perfect. So they don't expect children to be perfect either. Detny parents admit that they make mistakes. And they let children make their mistakes as well. They also don't try to convince anyone that they are always right.

Not detny parents are concerned about their rightousness and are defensive when children address these parents weaknesses. Parents perceive this as an attack to their authority and a power struglle ensues. Parents are afraid of losing control over the children and eventually this leads to fear of children. Detny parents, on the other hand, are not afraid of children, because there is no reason for power struggles.

Detny parents don't blame children. They also don't blame anybody else for their life's misfortunes; they are responsible for their own lives. However, they don't expect children to be responsible for children's lives, because children are still children. And children eventually learn about responsibility from these parents.

These ideas are taken from Simon Soloveychik's book Parenting For Everyone.

Parenting problems: what good parents know that bad parents don't

Parenting problems are usually expressed by "what to do if ..." questions. We want to know what to do if a child is stubborn, naughty, slow, sloppy, lazy, and rude. What if a child disobeys, smokes, steals, and lies? What if a child is cowardly, dependent, weak-willed, careless, tactless, spiteful, greedy, stingy, and shy? The list of questions is endless. When parents find the answer to one problem they are faced with another one waiting further down the road of upbringing. Why do some parents keep facing these problems, and why do some parents have no problems with their children at all? What is the secret of good parenting? Is it possible to learn how to raise children without the necessity for "what to do if..." questions?

Simon Soloveychik, the author of Parenting For Everyone says yes, it is possible. The secret of good parentimg exists in the field of ethics. Stated simply, ethics is the science about good and bad and how to differentiate between them. When parents understand the difference between good and bad they acquire intelligence .

So, from an ethical point of view, what do good parents know that bad parents don't?

1. Good parents know that they are good and honest people.
2. Good parents know that their child is a good and honest child.
3. Good parents know that there are many other good and honest people in the world and that there are more good people than bad ones.

The first statement says that effective parents have faith in their goodness. Generally they have healthy self-esteem and conscientiousness. So they view their lives in a positive way. They also have a positive approach to life's challenges. They are free people. They are not afraid of people. And they are not afraid of their own children.

The second statement is very important for parenting. Many mistakes come from underestimating the significance of this statement. Believe that your child is good and honest. Then your child will believe you, and will form the right image of himself in his mind. Your child will act accordingly to the belief, which you infected him with. Simon Soloveychik calls this a new parenting faith. If you have not yet acquired this faith you may have parenting problems.

The third statement is especially important. Children will sense whether you are truthful or not when it comes to judging others. If you believe that there are more bad people than good ones in the world, you impart to your child the idea that the world is a dangerous place. In a dangerous world you cannot trust anybody. When you pretend that you trust someone children notice this fake attitude, and they lose trust in you. When children stop trusting you all the other problems begin.

How do you learn to believe in yourself, in your child, and in goodness in the world? By education, by reading, by learning about the laws of the development of the human spirit . It requires a work of soul. There is no other way to avoid problems in parenting.

Parenting ideas: about teaching, praising and more

Upbringing must be unnoticeable. If you want to teach your child anything, do it without your child noticing your teaching. Teach without teaching, preaching, or lecturing. A child knows that at school a teacher teaches and evaluates the child's progress: is the child doing good or bad. At home a child wants to rest from being evaluated. However, any teaching, if noticed, assumes the inevitable- an evaluation will follow. Many parents constantly give their approval or disapproval to a child: good boy, good job, or, naaah, not so good... This eventually touches the child's dignity, the child's sense of worth. In this environment, where the child has no rest from being evaluated, being watched, and being taught, upbringing becomes ineffective. When it happens parents assume that they are doing not enough of teaching and work even harder to teach the child a lesson.

A child learns lessons not from the parents' words addressed to the child but from parent's words addressed to the world around the child. The child notices parental approval or disapproval of other people's actions, no matter whether or not those people live together in the same house or out in the world. Good parents don't necessarily approve or disapprove their child's actions. They let a child be a child. They show no doubts in their child's value. They make most of efforts toward increasing dignity of their children.

Increasing dignity of children doesn't include praising children right and left, with or without reason. Parents mistakenly think that praising children without reasons raises children' self-esteem. In fact, praising without reasons leads children to confusion, when they inevitably encounter people's judgment, which actually decrease the children's self-esteem. On the other hand praising children with reason, if done constantly, works like a drug and makes children become addicted, or dependent on the supply of a such praise. It is especially dangerous because it is commonly assumed to be a good parenting tool. When children are constantly praised for their good behavior they get used to pleasing adults to get more praise, they become afraid to do wrong and be deprived of praise. Such children become dependent and easily manipulated by others. Is this how you want your child to grow up to be?

It is possible to teach without teaching. There is upbringing without upbringing. The book Parenting For Everyone investigates the laws of raising children, not difficult children, but ordinary ones. What is possible and impossible in upbringing? What real power do parents have? What results follow from what actions? What are those laws and truths of the science of the art of parenting? One of them is that upbringing must be unnoticeable. If you want to teach somebody how to live do it unnoticeably.

Ideas taken from Parenting For Everyone by Simon Soloveychik, book1 part 1 chapter 3

Parent's challenge: learn what is left out of parenting books

Why is the subject of upbringing considered to be one of the most difficult tasks? Three parts are involved in upbringing: the parent, the child, and the relationship between them. When parenting books address parents they usually describe to parents peculiarities of a child's development, and tips to improve the relationship between them. But advice from those books may not work because one variable is left out: knowledge about the parent. "What kind of knowledge is it ," you may ask, "I know all about myself!" Yes and no. Yes, because you know your strengths and weaknesses as a parent. No, because you probably didn't think of the goals of upbringing, of your beliefs about your child, and many other things, without which you couldn't understand why some advice worked and some didn't.

This approach is commonplace, wherein "something works for me, and something doesn't." So parents go and look and look for tips and advice and test them on their children, at the expense of their children's relationship with them. This results in disappointed parents as if their children are guilty. Where in fact the reason of disappointment is that parents were looking in the wrong place.

Parenting is complex. This is something that authors tend to avoid because parents want quick fixes. However instant gratification does not work in the long term.

What knowledge about parents is left out in most parenting books? Here is an example. Parents have their image of an ideal child and very often this image doesn't fit with the image of the actual child. This incongruency leads to confusion. The way to avoid this is to change the ideal image to fit your real child according to your long term parental goals. Parenting faith is the most important quality of parents for a happy and long lasting relationship with children. What do you know about parenting faith and goals of upbringing? The authors of parenting books assume that you know about this things. Therefore they don't address it.

Simon Soloveychik in his book Parenting For Everyone states, "It does not matter how high destiny lifts a man, or how low fate plunges him - his happiness or unhappiness is in his children. The older we become the more we understand this." He gives a very comprehensive explanation of what parents need to learn about themselves, their parenting faith, their conditions of child rearing. With this knowledge parents will be fully armed to face a parent's challenge.

A parent's project: advice for mothers-to-be

If you are expecting a baby it is a wonderful time to consider your knowledge on parenting. How will you raise your child? What do you know about parenting? Do you want to raise your child the way your parents raised you?

The science of the art of upbringing children is not taught at special schools for parents. It is taught at the school of life. From childhood people learn about parenting; they learn it from their parents, and from other adults of the community. The fewer people around a child the less teachers he has. If an only child is raised by a single mother she is the only responsible one. Everything in a child-parent relationship will depend on how well prepared the mother is to parent. Perhaps, it will help to consider your parenting as a parent's project with goals, objectives, and realistic conditions.

In this work you will need a good guide. We have advice for mothers-to-be: read the book Parenting For Everyone by Simon Soloveychik. We are starting a series of articles introducing classical parenting ideas taken from this book.

So it begins... A serious attempt to understand the roots of humanity in people. Soloveychik's first chapter is short. As a short but deep inhalation of air before starting a long journey, a journey of understanding the science about the art of child-rearing.

Why art? As each individual is unique, each childhood is unique. Each child's upbringing may become a masterpiece of a talented parent, unique for each child, or it may become an ugly picture by an unjust and heartless parent. It's an art because you need talent to raise a child, talent of faith, hope and love. These concepts belong to the category of art .

Why science? Because there are laws. Knowing these laws is essential. If we don't learn about them naturally from our parents, we have to learn about them from life, from our children, or from other people, the hard way. As Soloveychik says, "We all have to teach each other, because we cannot teach little children."

This is our advice for mothers-to-be: prepare for child rearing, learn about the laws of child-parent relationship and discover your parenting talents.

(Commentary to Simon Soloveychik's Parenting For Everyone, Book1part1chapter1. Parenting is the science about the art of upbringing)

1112. Parenting without lofty words is deceptive

Nobody is surprised when legal documents start with definitions. If we want to set clear responsibilities between parties of the contract we need to use concepts with clear meaning. Same with parenting. If we want to understand clearly our roles and relations in the business of raising children we need to use clear words.

What are our goals in childrearing? What kind of person do we want our child to grow up to be? For example, we want our child to grow as a caring, responsible and successful adult with qualities of leadership and strong will. Adolf Hitler had these qualities. To some degree he was successful in his endeavors. He was a strong willed leader. He could be caring toward his girlfriend and his dog. Doesn't this example suggest that we need to be careful in choosing the words describing our parenting goals?

Simon Soloveychik offers to readers definitions of clear parenting purposes, which people consider lofty words. Without these words parenting inevitably becomes a lie, he states.

1111. Stages of self-liberation on the road from birth to birth

There are many different stages of human development. In his book Parenting For Everyone Simon Soloveychik offers his unique view on this process. He calls it self-liberation, which each person goes through from birth to death. At birth people are liberated for life. Then, stage after stage people are liberating themselves from dependencies of life, for freedom. Free people are fully responsible for their lives. At death the process ends by gaining freedom from any responsibility.

In fact what we are doing every day is that we are liberating ourselves from our problems by solving them. So do our children in their lives. They are doing their day to day routine overcoming their helplessness, to become empowered, moving from dependence to independence. If parents get used to looking at their children this way their attitude toward their chidlren would become better. Consequently, their children would too.

1110. Internal freedom: A child is developing by self-liberation

One of the greatest myths of freedom is belief that freedom granted externally leads to internal freedom. "Freedom that leads to responsibility is not given or granted; it is obtained by internal efforts. A child develops not by freedom itself, as some people think, but by the child's own actions to obtain freedom, by the child's self-liberation," states Simon Soloveychik.

Suppose we have two homes. In one home children are not allowed to act freely in most cases. They don't feel free. They strive to liberate themselves from parents' petty prohibitions, and often the children's strength is exhausted in this fight. By the time they have a chance to be free from parents they exchange their freedom for dependence on their peers.

In another home the children's actions are limited by very few rules. These children feel free. Yet, they too strive for freedom. They strive to liberate themselves from the limitations of life. They strive to break free from weakness of character, from cowardice, from social injustice. When they become teenagers and separate from their parents they are ready to meet their peers and be independent from them. They have strength to stand against negative peer pressure because they have experienced freedom.

Unfortunately many parents think that just providing a free environment is enough for raising internally free, responsible people. Modern parenting books based on psychology consider the topic of responsibility. But psychology doesn't investigate the causes and roots of responsibility. It doesn't speak in terms of internal freedom or self-liberation. These topics belong to the domain philosophy.

119. Internal freedom: first step is to understand independence

First, let's clarify the idea of two images in parents' minds. The majority of parents have an image of a Child when they raise a child, and they have an image of a Man who their child should grow up to be. The Child is supposed to be dependent, one who is to be taught what to do. The Man is supposed to be independent, one who is supposed to know what to do. The greatest disappointment in upbringing takes its root from this point. When parents raise their child by the image of dependent child they receive a big child in the end, not an independent man as they were expecting. Therefore Simon Soloveychik asks readers to make it clear what result parents want to get in the end of upbringing, what goal they want to reach.

Every parent would agree that his or her child should become an independent person. Thus, independence is the ultimate goal of upbringing of a child. If this is so, then we need to accept that there is only one image we should keep in our mind when we raise children. It is the image of an independent child, or a child striving for independence. "How is this possible?" You may ask, "A child is dependent on us!" Yes, a child is dependent on us, and yet, a dependent child may still be free. It seems to be a contradiction: we have a child dependent on us and we still can raise a free child, simultaneously. Many parents do this work and they are very happy with their results. For the reason, to diminish this contradiction, we need to clarify what we mean by independence.

"Independent means being free, or more precisely, being internally free" (S.Soloveychik). Chapter 9 is the most difficult chapter of the whole book because it is about internal freedom, or inner independence. Most people are confused here. Everyone can admit that freedom assumes freedom of choices. In comparison to a commonplace opinion though, internal freedom also assumes full responsibility for those choices. Therefore a free man is a completely responsible man. How do irresponsible children grow up to be responsible people? Apparently, "freedom of a man is determined by the source of punishment for his mistakes," says Simon Soloveychik. If we punish children for their wrong choices we take responsibility ourselves. We are being responsible, not the children. When we scold, blame, or rebuke a child for his or her mistakes we punish the child. The child doesn't learn responsibility. All the child learns is that we don't love him or her and that he or she is supposed to be guilty. Therefore children grow not free, afraid of people, afraid of life, afraid of freedom.

When teenagers are used to punishment in childhood, they don't know internal freedom, and they don't know responsibility. They avoid responsibility. When there is a chance they strive to join a group of other teenagers or adults, they strive to continue being dependent, because they don't know any better. Unfortunately, instead of understanding the root of mistakes in upbringing, parents tend to control children even harder and eventually parents fail.

Why does it need to be so complicated? Why do we even talk about responsibility? Sometimes it is more convenient to raise a child who is obedient and controllable. Let's admit it: sometimes we don't want our children to be free! But do we want our children to be happy? In the movie Pursuit of Happiness the main character, Chris Gardner acted by Will Smith, represents a free man. He doesn't complain, he doesn't blame, he is fully responsible, and he feels equal to other people. He is in search of solutions, in pursuit of his happiness. Will Smith's character calls for our admiration. Do we want our children to grow up to be people who will be worth admiring? Then we need to learn how to raise them free.

118. The image of Ideal Child stops being ideal, in terms of being "perfect"

Parents are used to underestimating the importance of the fact that there are two images in their mind when they grow up children. All troubles stem from ignoring this fact. It is because when children are small parents think for them and tell them what to do. When children become adults and live in society, parents expect them to think for themselves and not wait till other people tell them what to do.

Here they are - our children. Still boys and girls, striving to be independent. They are unskilled, clumsy, messing things up, loud, when we want quiet, and quiet when we want them to be assertive, in one word - imperfect. Do we need to mold them to be perfect children and push their spirits down, or do we hold back our teaching passion and let them make their mistakes, which hopefully they out grow by the time they are adults?

Therefore, it is a necessary to ponder on the second image of an Ideal Woman or an Ideal Man now, when our children are still small. Who we want them to become like? What is the goal of our upbringing?