Toddler Wussies
Check out Dad-Blogs for Fatherhood Friday!
I was talking with my kick ass daycare provider today and she made a comment that caught me off guard while talking about Will.
“He’s such a free spirit,” she said. “He really makes the other parents nervous.”
I was taken aback and I asked her what she meant. You see, Will is nuts. I know all toddlers are nuts, but I’d be willing to bet he’s got more energy and bravado than a lot of the kids. That carries over at daycare, where he insists on being outside and he plays non-stop. He runs, he climbs, he falls and he explores. And instead of trying to tame that down, we encourage it. While I thought that’s how most households operate, apparently I was wrong.
She went on to tell me that some of the other parents cringe when they watch him running or climbing. If he’s sprinting along and then falls, they immediately run over to him as if he just broke every bone in his body. Except that’s not how MJ and I handle Will. If he falls, we tell him to get up. If he climbs, we clap for him. And if he hurts himself (minor injuries of course) after we’ve told him not to do something, well…lesson learned.
We love him to death but we don’t coddle him. We protect him from serious injuries, but we also feel the only way for him to learn is to allow him to test his boundaries to a certain extent. That’s how he learned to get down off of our bed (which is roughly 4 feet high). It’s how he learned to climb up the stairs on the playground. It’s how he learned to run. The list goes on and on.
Apparently that makes some of the other daycare parents uncomfortable and I’m sure they think we’re allowing him to be reckless, but I don’t care. I think they’re hindering their kids by being overprotective ninnies. I know of one mom who will not even allow our daycare provider to drive outside of the town with her daughter. Seriously. She’s allowed to drive in town, but not over the line. As if traffic accidents simply don’t occur in the town of Bourne, Mass. I’m sorry, but if you trust someone to watch your kid for hours on end during the week, you should trust him/her to drive into the next town.
Besides, kids are built to be resilient. They’ll survive. Sure you protect them to a point, but you also need to let go of the reins and let them do their thing. Personally I hope Will infects every single one of his daycare compadres with his adventurous spirit. I hope all the kids start climbing things, running around and skinning their knees.
Maybe then the uptight parents will stop clenching their uppity sphincters long enough to realize rough and tumble is a good thing.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Yeah, I don’t see anything wrong with being an adventurous little kid. It builds a good foundation for the rest of life.
November 6th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
There are no flies on Will. He waves to everyone, thinks nothing of reaching out to hug a little kid he sees, and he just loves to learn. That is a quality I hope and pray he never loses. Sure, he scares the shit out of me from time to time - but that’s part of his job.
November 6th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
OMG, I hate those parents that coddle their children. I have a couple of friends who do that and when their kids are whining and crying over every little thing i just want to bitch slap the parents AND the kids and tell them to knock that shit off. I mean, they are great kids, but coddling them like that does them NO favors whatsoever. You can be loving and supportive, but do it in a way that creates confidence in the child’s ability to handle situations themselves instead of crying and whining for someone to make it better for them.
November 7th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Ohhh I agree but my wife is one of those parents! Ha. Let me tell you..my oldest (he is 6) fell down 13 steps when he was 5-6 months old. My wife went to the grocery store for the first time with him and while putting the bags down, forgot to latch the gate. She said he bounced down every step. She of course called me before calling 911. We were lucky not even a bruise. Scary but it amazed me how tough kids really are. We were really lucky but I always say…that fall sure explains a lot!
November 7th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Mike, that’s eery. My kid fell down all the stairs at my parents’ house on Christmas Eve when he was 9 months old. While he had a MASSIVE bruise on his head, he was fine by the time we got to the hospital. From then on I realized kids aren’t nearly as fragile as we think.
November 9th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
My daughter is the same way. She’s a runner, jumper, climber. Scares the shit out of me but she doesn’t cry when she hurts herself any more. Unless its something like closing her finger in a drawer or door or something. But even that, she is SUPER careful now with drawers. They have to learn somehow!
November 9th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
OMG! So what you’re saying is Will is a normal child and all the people with those abnormal wussified kids are scared?
What is this world coming to! Rub some dirt on it!
November 9th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
I thought that’s what kids are supposed to do. Silly me
You should have seen the looks we got when our son started riding four-wheelers and dirt bikes at six years old.
November 9th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
I am sure people think I’m a bad parent to my son. At 18 months, he has had more bumps and scrapes than his sister has had in 4 1/2 years. He’s a very happy little whirling dervish. Do I stop him from doing things that will get him seriously hurt or killed? Yep. Do I wrap him up in bubble wrap? No, but I have seriously contemplated it. LOL The best thing is that b/c we don’t coddle him, he is not afraid to try.
November 20th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Yep. You’ve got yourself a live one here! Again, I’ve watched you start out with the quiet, sleeping baby and he has turned into what Misch was. Misch is now 4 1/2 and sweet as pie! BUT… I took her to a child psychologist and a social worker on two different occasions so obviously I was having some out of the norm problems controlling her. Figuring her out. However you want to phrase it.
But I feel your pain either way. He’ll continue to wear you OUT until he turns 4 if I had to guess. When Misch was 22 months I had Coco and THEN the real fun begin. I’ve never cried more in my life but everything has worked out now. But SHIT… I cried out of frustration!
My grandmother said this to me once…”Children will find your weakness then beat the shit out of you with it”. She was right.