Shika Says

I titled this particularly, because as an adult I love Sponge Bob, he is whacky, emotionally unstable and a little bit crazy, which makes for great entertainment. The fact that he is an animated character has led a lot of parents to allow their children of all ages to watch his adventures. But I am not one of those parents. My son is 3, and emulates almost everything he sees, so I am very restrictive in what I show him so as not to create an undesired behaviour. I mean if my son had an emotional breakdown, the way SpongeBob does, at every hurdle he experiences, it may be detrimental to his quality of life, now and as an adult. 

I know children learn from all sources, their parents grandparents siblings extended family friends teachers television and they also learn from what they find works for them, trial and error. They take what they see hear smell taste and touch and convert it into ideas which are guided by a care giver. And in modern society admittedly sometimes the caregiver is the television. I know this for a fact, because I am writing this blog, while my son is watching Andy’s Dinosaur Adventure.  

I am one of those parents who if someone says: “My child has started doing ...” (fill in bad behaviour here)...and I have the bad habit of asking,: “Where did he learn it from? Did he see someone do it? Did they do it to him? What is he watching?” 

Now I ask these questions because having studied psychology as a major in university, childhood development, and particularly lessons on early childhood development intrigued me the most. Nurture always trumped nature for me, in most cases. No matter the genes (unless a physical or hormonal imbalance is found) How a child is guided and taught in those formative years was evident in them as an adult, and I do believe the foundation years are the actual cement in the building of a sound sturdy and safe adult. A lot of what ‘I’ believe, ‘I’ like, ‘I’ hate or ‘I’feel about certain things I link to the foundation experiences I had as a child.  

So every time I meet a parent I find it interesting to learn more about their parenting technique. I ask questions and try to understand the reasons certain choices are made in their rearing of their offspring. Here’s why, I grew up loving dinosaurs, The Jurassic Park Series of films are my favourite. I watch all the films repeatedly throughout the year. It relaxes me and engages me all at the same time. I linked my love for dinosaurs to the fact that as a child I would watch ‘The Land Before Time’ almost on repeat, it is a cute animated dinosaur story about different dinosaurs learning that although they are different they can be friends and work together. When I turned 10, my mother took me to watch the Jurassic Parks’ as they were released in the cinemas. Now, my son has a great love for dinosaurs spurred by CeeBeeBee’s presenter Andy Day, who has a series of Dinosaur shows that sees him going on adventures with them and teaching us all about dinosaurs. My son sees dinosaurs as his friends. Most of the day he himself is a dinosaur enacting what he sees on Andy’s Dinosaur adventures, and he plays all the parts. Some may say I have passed my love of dinosaurs onto my child, and I may have, he enjoyed it, I gave him the option to watch dinosaur shows more than others, or it may be because when he was in my womb I would binge watch Jurassic Park, his love for it can be accounted to so many things. If he grows up to love dinosaurs as much as I do as an adult then the pattern continues. This for me is evidence that formative years and influence in the formative years lingers beyond into adulthood.
    

Now, I have chosen not to show him Jurassic Park until I can properly explain why in the films dinosaur’s eats human beings. At this moment I literally do not know how to explain to him why dinosaurs eat humans. If I tell him because the dinosaurs are ‘mean’, the dinosaurs stop being his friends, because he understands being mean in a bad quality and nobody wants mean friends. If I tell him it’s okay for them to eat humans, I am worried he won't understand that predators have an innate survival drive. He, on most days, IS a dinosaur (his imagination is at an epic phase), does he then start believing ‘to be a real dinosaur he needs to eat humans?’ There is no simple way to explain: “It’s in their nature to kill, their feelings are not hurt when a human dies because humans are flesh and to predatory dinosaur, humans are food, you cannot have a dinosaur as a friend except in your imagination, they do not exist anymore, but to you they are real because your tv shows make them that, but one day you will understand that all this is based on scientific research and its findings.” I mean do dinosaurs even have feelings? Did they have feelings? But I use this to try and tell him HE has feelings and a dinosaur who went extinct millions of years ago cannot have feelings so the construct of them in the human mind is similar to that of a Lion Crocodile or Hyena. 

If I tell my son all that he will have no idea what I am saying. So now I wait for the age in which his cognitive and vocabulary skills are developed enough so we can sit down and enjoy Jurassic Park together in full understanding of what it represents. 

I have explained to him that for eg. Lions eat other animals, Crocodiles eat other animals, he does watch nature documentaries with parental guidance. I explain to him that some animals eat vegetables and some eat other animals, but I’m not quite sure he fully understands why. I feel he is too young to explain exactly why predators are eating human beings tho, so we don't show him those examples.

I am a firm believer in not showing children humans killing humans or humans killing animals, it is not age appropriate for the obvious reasons of emulating behaviour without understanding the reasoning or concepts behind the action. 

With all this said, my supervision of what my child watches is in direct relation to my OCD of the necessity for constant supervision, especially in children in their formative years. I have seen the disastrous effects of unsupervised kids. In my own child for example, at first it was a safety issue ‘I need to see what he is doing constantly so he does not hurt himself by eating something harmful or dropping something on his head’, then it progressed to the tantrum years and ‘I need to supervise to make sure he is not hurting others’, and as he grows I am supervising him in public spaces and private spaces eg. Others homes, so that he learns there are boundaries to respect when other people are involved in a communal space. 

When the moment arises that I don't supervise his actions, he may learn a behaviour, eg. Jumping on the bed, he does it for 15 minutes, with no correction from an adult, I walk in 15min later and stop him and he looks at me with the feelings, “but mom I’ve been doing it and no one stopped me, I feel it is fine, so I will continue.” Then I instruct him to stop, discipline in explanations of why jumping on a bed can be harmful proceed, and sometimes it leads to a tantrum, and then insistence on performing the action especially because it is now prohibited. This can be done with any action unsupervised, breaking flowers, poking animals with sticks, poking children with sticks, hitting others, throwing balls in the house, throwing items at people, randomly throwing items, destroying property, eating inedible objects, breaking crockery, and the list is infinite. 

So my theory is to supervise his behaviour until the right conduct is learnt and becomes innate. It takes a lot of repetition, a lot of correction and lot of patience. But eventually it works. The other day my son was watching Toy Story and I heard him tell Woody: “No shoes on the bed Woody,”. It makes me believe he has learnt a lesson of sorts. I know if my son gets on a bed he will take off his shoes, unless instructed not to by an adult. Of course sometimes he forgets when distracted, he is 3, but I am there to remind him, and if I’m not there his caregiver at the time reminds him. And so the supervision continues in all forms and for all different behaviours, tv, playing, reading, eating, interacting. 

In my many interactions with many parents, I find my OCD about supervision also points out that sometimes parents THINK they are supervising but instead their children are running through someone else’s house creating new behaviours that they persist with because it is too late to unlearn at the 1st request and a lot of the time parents are too exhausted for constant supervision and detailed discipline (breaking down specific actions into direct consequence). I am in no way claiming to be perfect, I admit get it wrong a lot of the time, I am conscious of the times I get it wrong and actively pursue a new way until a solution is found that benefits myself, my child and those we interact with. It’s a long journey with many stops starts step backwards before ultimate progression occurs. And it helps that my husband and I are on the same page when it comes to supervision and discipline. Some days are good days, some days are bad.

So I write this in hopes to get parents thinking more about conscious communication that lead to conscious parenting, I myself have a long way to go in this consciousness journey. Because I have found when we start thinking about these options we have as parents we start talking about it, and when discussions happen around any issue. new insights come to light and new ways to effective parenting present itself. I love talking to fellow parents about why they do what they do, not to call them out on a ‘better way to parent’, but in finding alternative ways in dealing with the real life parenting problem we all face on a day to day basis.

After reading this I don't expect parents to want constant supervision for their child or even try to enforce it, but merely think about it. These are my findings, on my experiences with my own child, myself and those I interact with, I share because I have found a pattern of relation between the types of parents we are to the types of adults we are creating. If this account assists you to better ask questions as to why your or another child behaves like Angelica from the Rugrats, or why your child is scared like Boo from Monsters Inc, or why a child is inclined to certain behaviours then I am happy I have shared.

My intention is to motivate us all to be more conscious of our children’s developmental journey, because when we are conscious of our thought action and interactions, the adults we are raising emulate exactly that.