Parenting on Instinct (or Not)

I get a lot of parenting advice that goes something like this: "Just trust your instincts."

Ironically, my "instincts" tells me not to blindly trust my instincts. Maybe it's because I'm an INTJ on the Myer's-Briggs personality test. I like to do research. I like to read multiple perspectives. I like exposing myself to different paradigms and new ideas.

Of course, at the end of the day, Matt and I will have to trust ourselves to select from the various informed perspectives and piece together a parenting philosophy that resonates with us.

That's kind of like "trusting your instincts," but not exactly. I happen to believe that a lot of our impulses (or instincts) stem from potentially unhealthy places. Sometimes, they are connected to the way our parents raised us (for better or worse) or they are in reaction to the way our parents raised us. Sometimes they are connected to unresolved needs we have in our own lives. Sometimes they come from patterns we've internalized from mass culture via TV, movies, magazines, etc.

Anyway, I often think it's worth putting our "instincts" under a microscope and analyzing them before we act upon them. That's why I so appreciate this nine-month period to prepare for parenthood as much as possible (with full understanding that they amount of preparation you can do is pretty limited, relative to the actual experience!).

In this vein, I picked up a few parenting books from the library, such as Nurture Shock. I very much appreciated the introduction, entitled, "Why our instincts about children can be so off the mark." The authors explain that our "instincts" can be "so off-base because they are not actually instincts." Instead, they are "reactions" that are "polluted by a hodgepodge of wishful thinking, moralistic biases, contagious fads, personal history, and old (disproven) psychology."

Fortunately, many of the book's conclusions do align with practices and philosophies that I've been implementing in my classroom for years. For example, in the chapter about "Why Kids Lie," the authors conclude that it's really important to make a big deal about honesty and telling the truth from a very young age. Some parents think that telling lies is "just a phase" and don't emphasize it enough.

However, I've had new realizations, like the fact that it's important to talk about differences in race, rather than just try to treat everyone equally without explicitly talking about it (from the chapter called, "Why White Parents Don't Talk About Race").

Although I'm enjoying the book, I do wish it were a bit more prescriptive. At the end of each chapter, for example, I would like a bulleted list of "So here's a list of specific strategies to implement with your child, based on the research we just shared." Actually, I wish I were reading this book in a book club, so I could brainstorm those ideas with others...too bad I'm almost finished!

Share |