This parenting post came across my Facebook feed the other day and I love everything about what it says, so I had to share. It’s entitled, “Don’t Stand Me Up”
(I actually read a lot of Janet Lansbury’s posts and I would encourage you to as well, if this type of parenting appeals to you!)
**Tangent: That will be my advice of the day (that I know I’ve already given)… find a type of parenting that appeals to you and read all about it! Ignore the other ‘stuff’ and advice out there, because if it doesn’t makes sense to you, it will be impossible to follow and you’ll only feel guilty about it. That’s neither here nor there, though.
The post I previously mentioned discusses not assisting your child with things they can’t developmentally do by themselves. This means not propping them up against pillows before they can sit on their own, not standing them up, not ‘helping’ them walk by holding them up, etc. The idea is that children will be stronger and more agile if they learn to do these things independently as opposed to relying on their parents or other caregivers for help. Makes sense, right?! The part that I thought was especially interesting has to do with safety. The author suggests that we should not be putting our children in places they cannot get to by themselves (let’s use the couch as an example, because we’re guilty of this in our house!) because they won’t be able to get safely down.
This made such sense to me! If Clara is developmentally and physically able to get on the couch, I know she’ll be able to get off safely, too. However, if I place her on the bed or the couch, it’s a safety issue because she’ll keep trying to go off head first since she has no idea how she even got on there. Ah, I was so convicted when I read this!
Another example from our life jumps to mind: One day Clara decided to climb in one of her toy bins. I just watched her do it. Then she kind of got stuck in there. Well, she was hanging halfway out of it (headfirst, of course), and I was convinced shes was going to fall on her head – but since she wasn’t going to seriously hurt herself anyway, I just let her keep trying to get out to see what would happen. I was pretty impressed/surprised when she actually managed to climb out by doing a handstand and crawling forward! (I wish I had recorded it, but I was really convinced it was going to end in tears and didn’t want the evidence of me being a neglectful mom!)
I do find there are some exceptions. Clara knows how to climb up stairs but she definitely doesn’t know how to climb down. And more than once she has climbed on the first shelf of our book case and just looks at us in bewilderment, because she doesn’t know how to step off of it without having the room to crawl. So obviously, we help her out when she needs it! She’s not at an age where we can exactly give her step by step (no pun intended) directions for situations like those!
“Uhhhh guys, how do I get down?”
Overall, this logic and style of parenting really speaks to me, and it comes pretty naturally. It definitely jives with my ‘mama instincts’, which is important! I know it’s not for everyone, but I love the idea of not rushing Clara and letting her do everything on her own time. I felt this way about her starting solid foods and now I feel even more strongly about it when it comes to mobility, so I just had to share!
