Training, teaching are both essential
In the early days of parenting, I don’t think I really understood the difference in training and teaching. But, as the years passed and more babies came, I learned. Actually, I probably learned far more than did my children.
I made many mistakes. But, I kept learning, and still do.
Debby Beisner, the wife of Cal Beisner, a dear friend and former editor of this newspaper, said: “Parenting is for the sanctification of the parents. Children can get sanctified when they are parents.”
Although we do want our children to learn while young, many of life’s hardest lessons are learned when they’re older and face life’s trials. Some lessons, maybe the ones learned the best, are learned through failure and rebellion.
It’s really interesting being a grandmother while still mothering, too. It’s especially humbling when your grown children who are parents critique your parenting of your youngest children. They may have insight and, yet, may also speak out of the idealism that accompanies youth.
So many of the games we played as children, and later as parents playing with our children, were actually training tools. Consider Peekaboo. It actually teaches infants object permanence. Infants don’t realize that an object that is out of sight still exists. When an infant begins to become mobile — crawling — he or she is often anxious when left alone. Funny, it’s okay for them to crawl out of sight, but mother walking out of their sight may cause tears.
Other games, “Mother, May I?” and “Red, light, green light,” teach children how to listen to and follow instructions. The quiet game teaches them to use self-control. Gossip teaches about the ease with which information changes as it passes from one person to another.
Actually, I don’t see or hear of these games being played much anymore. Children today seem far too occupied with televisions, computers, video games, “smart” phones. And, actually, their parents are of a generation who grew up with computers and may not have played these games either. And, sometimes it’s just too much work to play with children, or so some young parents say.
Parents today seem to struggle with disciplining their children. Few children are taught to sit still and quietly, to not interrupt others when they’re talking, to use manners and say “please” and “thank you.”
Children will be children. There is a time to play, to work, to sleep, to eat, to be still, to be active. But, it seems that adults and children alike today operate on impulse, on feeling, and use very little self-denial. We must discipline ourselves before we can discipline (teach, not necessarily punish) our children.
I remember clearly stressing over parenting. A mother whose third child was the age of my first born was talking about parenting her third child, a son. I was worried because I wasn’t facing any of the issues she was and thought I wasn’t parenting properly. But, our children were very different personalities and I was worrying unnecessarily. It took years and multiple children before I truly realized how different each child is and how each requires different techniques for training and for teaching.
Each child’s personality, his or her place in the family (birth order), the parents’ personalities and predilections all affect the child’s behavior.
Training is learning something by repetition, by reinforcing good behavior with positive feedback and stopping undesirable behavior with negative feedback. It is used with animals as well as with humans. Any one can be trained. Children with are handicapped or with learning disabilities are trained in many things, including potty training, self-feeding, self-dressing.
We can train ourselves. When we feel a complaint coming to our lips, we can deliberately stop it and replace it with a remark of gratitude. Instead of complaining about the laundry, we could be grateful we have clothes and the machines in our home to wash and dry them. Before we complain about the time, energy, money required to care of our children, we say: “Thank you, Lord, for healthy children.”
If they don’t know better, young mothers don’t realize that much learning is going on in the first months of an infant’s life. That mother is training her child to trust when she comforts, feeds, soothes the crying child. She can help her child learn to cry softly, to learn self-soothing techniques as the child grows older. Never dismiss the first months of a baby’s life as unimportant. Play quality music, read to your child while nursing or feeding him or her. Build a good foundation of calm, assertive parenting and the years that follow will be easier.