Personally, I don't believe in getting worked up over every bump and bruise. I don't believe in scooping the child up and coddling her over every slight discomfort. It seems cold, I'm sure, when she nearly bites it and I simply tell her to "dust it off," but my child - the ultimate bad ass of toddler bad-asses - gets up and dusts herself off.
Also, I don't remember NOT having skinned knees for longer than four minutes as a child. So as terrible as this may sound, I want her to fall and get bruises and scrapes. I think it's a part of growing up.
Today, however, was the first time (that I am aware of) that I could see and feel the judgment of my non-reaction to my child's injury. We were at Panera getting items for our weekly carbfest. My girl was confused and upset that we weren't staying there to eat and as I held her hand and tried to guide her towards the door, she yanked her arm away from me and in doing so, fell backwards into a cabinet. As her back hit the door it made an awfully loud noise and two ladies jerked there heads to see what had happened. The looks on their faces were something like this:
"look of disapproval" emoticon |
Now, even when she is having one of her less pleasant toddler moments...
... they are soon balanced out by her doing/saying/looking heart-breakingly sweet:
I am not a perfect mother. Obviously, this blog is more of a self-obsessed fitness diary than an ode to family life, so I don't focus a whole lot on everything parenthood-related when I write. But I LOVE my kid. And just the notion that someone would think for a second that I would hurt her on purpose makes me sick.
So do me a favor, rubber-necking busybodies: Say something to the parent smoking in the car with kids in the back seat. Give dirty looks to the person who yells at her kid, "I TOLD you to SHUT UP." Go bother the person who lets their kids run circles around the restaurant whenever they go out to eat.
It's because I love my kid that I don't protect her from every boo-boo or plead with baby talk to get her to cooperate when she's feeling a bit TOO independent.
I don't know what you think, but I'd say the outcome is good so far.
Anyone ever give you crap for your parenting practices?
How do you (or would you, if kids are in your future) teach your kids to be tough and strong?
1 comment:
I'm sure you are a great mom! And I think the way you react to her bumps and bruises are the way parents SHOULD react. A lot of the time, when a kid falls down, they don't actually start to freak out until the parent starts freaking out. It teaches them that freaking out is the way to react when something hurts a little bit. Teaching a kid to get up and dust themselves off is going to be much more useful in the long run.
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