I'll give me a cookie if I'll be a good parent

Oh bloody hell. So I'm reading this parenting book, it's about discipline.

First off, I'm still in the process of accepting that this is one of the main ways I learn to do things - read a book about it - and that that's a legitimate way to learn how to, say, parent. Not an ideal way, actually it's one of the lesser ways because it's so non-experiential. It's like learning how to paint from a book, or learning how to cook. Makes a _lot_ more sense to do it firsthand. But whatever, as long as I change the way I look at learning, I'm okay. You really can learn through books, but not as a step by step, line-by-line process. It's more like panning for gold, letting all that the books says pour over and through your brain, and whatever little nuggets stay with you, you cash em in and spend them.

So I need as many good ideas about parenting as I can get. Gives me something to chew on when I find a good read.

The read I'm working on now is called "Unconditional Parenting" and the main premise is that punitive damages (spanking, time out, even rewards systems) teach kids that they are only loved if they act a certain way. The author thinks if you let a kid know they are loved unconditionally no matter what, you'll get better behavior, but more importantly a better relationship with your kid, and he thinks a kid that gets treated like a viable human being will in turn treat other people like viable human beings. He thinks one of our main objectives when raising kids is to teach them to be considerate and kind to other people. He thinks corporal punishment in particular and most punishment in general makes kids think only about what effect their actions will have on themselves. ("If I act up in the grocery store, mom won't buy me a treat" as opposed to "If I act up in the grocery store, I'll be bothering other people")

I'm down with all of this. Very down with it. It's articulating a lot about the way I'd like to treat Anonybabe, but have been kind of scared to because I worry about spoiling her, that she'll be uncontrollable unless I tightly control her -- all of the conventional wisdom about such things. this dude hit the nail on the head for me when he said tightly controlled parenting (the kind I grew up with) assumes that the kids are, at heart, horrible wild animals that are just waiting to take advantage of us unless we tamp them down. Which of course isn't true. They can be capable of downright horrible things, it's true, but they can also be naturally capable of acts of amazing kindness and love. Just like adults. The idea is that kids are people too! So if you treat them with respect and thoughtfulness, they'll learn to be respectful and thoughtful.

Like I said, groovy! All well and good, except while reading all of this I feel like I need to be reprogrammed to be the kind of person I want to try to help Anonybabe become. I'm reminded of how I scold her to only take one grape or one cracker at a time from her high chair tray, and I'm saying it through the handful of crackers I just shoved into my mouth. Think about how my actions affect other people? Not so much. To try to impress on her to think about the consequences of her actions on other people has me thinking about the consequences of my actions on people at large...and realizing how breathtakingly self-centered I can be. I guess I've realized that before (and been told by people who were close to me) but I've never had a good enough reason to want to change that.

So I'm kind of overwhelmed reading this book. I feel like I can't even really think about how I'm going to apply some of the nuggets I like here to Anonybabe until I've applied some of them to myself. Not that I'll wait until I'm perfectly presentable to try to teach Anonybabe as much as that absurd thought actually appeals to me. Just that I'll realize while I'm doing it that we both have some growing up to do. Me maybe more than her.

Sigh. Life really is one big science experiment, ain't it?

Or rather, life is like a painting. I always thought life was lived in broad decisive strokes, big acts. But it isn't. It's lived smidgen by smidgen, dab by dab. That's why it's okay to make mistakes, if you have one bad dab to 100 good ones, you're in good shape. Even if you have 1,000 bad dabs, given time & patience you can dab out more good than bad. Time to dab out some good parenting, to my daughter and myself.