I went to the mall yesterday. Against my own judgment my son and I ended up at the mall play place. Yes, that bacteria-filled, chaotic area filled with rubberized renditions of planets and space ships and such. The kids just love it. Except when they have to leave. The parents just endure it.
As I was sitting on the bench watching my little one play -- because I vow that he must learn the rules of the playground from the playground beasts themselves not from my constant guidance -- I noticed a couple of hovering, overtalkative parents with a different philosophy. This type of observation, in my opinion, is truly as helpful as any parenting book one could ever set eyes upon.
I make no judgment on the people themselves. To be clear, I employed a similar parenting style with my first and to a lesser degree with my second. I am no stranger to hovering. It's just now with my third I have realized that style does nothing to instill any learning in the child and only adds to my own stress and raises my blood pressure. And in all likelihood really made some other folks near me nervous and/or annoyed.
Here's the scene: many, many children drawn to the one NASA spaceship with two seats and steering wheels. My take on this was "this will be interesting to see what happens here." My son even came up to me and said, "I want a turn" to which I replied, "go see if you can find a turn. You kids have to work that out yourselves." My own version of "I'm not getting involved in this unless someone throws a punch and even then it depends."
At the same time there was helicopter mom #1. Now again there is no judgment but I will take a moment to poke some fun and create a caricature of her. She had twin boys about age 4 I would guess. She was showered and dressed in matching clothing (not sweatpants, no ball cap) and her hair and makeup were immaculate. Right away I sensed something was amiss. Then I watched and listened as she coached her sons nonstop with how to take turns all the while designating whose turn it was or who might be wanting a turn or wait your turn or maybe he wants a turn or your turn is over. The stress on her face and exuding from her body could be seen free floating in the air. By my observation the hardest part for her sons seemed to be getting the concept of when she decided their turn was over. They mostly listened when she decided to let them and others around know it was her sons' turns. They were aghast when it was someone else's turn.
I started noticing that these two boys whose mom was arranging their turns for them in a neat, timely and orderly fashion amidst a "non-neat" and disorderly and sporadically timed world of toddlers was only creating confusion for her boys at best. At worst their sense of entitlement to a turn seemed to grow and grow with each command she relayed to them. And the rest of the playground kids were afraid of her.
Sometimes trial and error are the best way to truly learn how to take turns. I do believe this to be true. I highly recommend letting your kids just play. When they get shoved or throw a smart forearm shiver of their own is when they get the best lessons if left to their own. Unless parents plan on traveling their entire lives with their children and coaching them all the way I think we all should consider cutting the helicopter engine as early as possible.
