Does the child really fear failure or is it the parent?
Friendship is not something I seek with my daughter. While I give her a lot of latitude, there are guard rails in place to define her limits of behavior with me. For instance, my daughter is never allowed to call me by names my own mother, siblings or friends use. To her, I’m baba, daddy, dad, father or any version thereof. This goes for her friends too who must address me with a mister or any version thereof. But I encourage my daughter to vigorously debate me on things and to challenge me with logic and persuasion when she wants me to gain better insights into her views. The worse that can happen is she hears a ‘no’ or a ‘not now’ from me but I would never admonish her for having different views and ideas.
But I notice had that her expressiveness with me is often muted at her mom’s. In fact, I’d even go as far as saying that her usual bubbly and vocal personality is often suppressed there. I sensed she is exercising self-censorship. To a lesser extent, I noticed this with my daughter’s friends, too. Once at school pick up, one of her friends came racing out of the school at the dismissal bell only to be met with a father’s disappointing stare and lecture on why she wasn’t wearing a facial mask. The child’s exuberance instantly evaporated as she stood silent and head down. When I get angry and start barking out harsh words, it’s mostly because my daughter has forgotten or failed to do something, she too is muted. Sometimes, I take it personally and see her failure as a reflection of me. But those situations are infrequent and while my fuse is short, so too are those moments and we quickly move on. But knowing some of these parents and knowing my own ex, who has long fuses, it can be unsettling for a child who might not know whether the moment had passed without fuss or whether it’s just another spark along the lengthy fuse. For a child walking on eggshells, it’s tough to know what is worst: being afraid of the negative reaction a parent might have or the unnecessary prolongation of that reaction and what it really means.
The Formula 1 driver doesn’t win the race by driving 200mph the whole way through nor do they focus on one bad lap. It’s the determination to make it through multiple laps that will provide the experience of coming out ahead. This throttle approach is probably the best parenting style.
I am not a psychologist and my opinions come from the single-parenting of one elementary school daughter, but it is my firm belief that kids are a product of their upbringing. How they are socialized at home will greatly dictate the neurosis each will have when they grow up. Will a woman be contained in her opinions as she wasn’t offered opportunities for greater input as a child? Will a man minimize his own successes because he was never recognized or praised for the simplest contributions as a child? Will a new generation of people join the working class producing more mediocrity because they were devalued as children? I fear that sometimes, what passes for parenting approaches often masks parental fears and inadequacies.
Hilary Friedman wrote a doctoral dissertation turned book calling Playing to Win, which investigated the motives of parents who push their children into competitive activities. It was found that engagement into these activities has no bearing on the type or whether the child was even interested in those activities. The primary motive stemmed from the parents looking for a return on investment because the activity provided a competitive aspect that a child can learn which would serve them well in future competitions in college, high salaries and other success determining goals. There are exceptions to the rules, of course, but there are also confirmed outliers like tiger moms and dads who exemplify this approach. Any opposition to this parental agenda would be met with immediate and absolute resolution—by the fearful parents themselves, who see their own failures through their children.
The reality is that all the perfect manicuring of children by way of helicopter, slow plow or even fuel-injector parenting are questioned. Few, if any of the parents have the mettle and absence of empathy to parent sustainably in this manner anyway. So the ultimate question is, what is the balance between providing what the child needs and what the parent wants without using fear as a barometer? Again, I’m no psychologist, but personally, I feel that a throttle parenting style is best. This allows the parent to provide consistent and firm guidance during a straightaway, while slowing down to allow a child to make course correction when life throws her a curve. And when the road gets bumpy, a parent shouldn’t blindly continue to push at speed but slow down and offer supportive encouragement to ride out the rough patch—maybe even a pause at the pit stop. The Formula 1 driver doesn’t win the race by driving 200mph the whole way through nor do they focus on one bad lap. It’s the determination to make it through multiple laps that will provide the experience of coming out ahead. Parents should internalize the same analogy as parenting is never about the parent.
