Ideas based on the work of Russell Barkley
According to Russell Barkley “You do not design your children.” Summarizing the research on neuroimaging, behavior genetics, developmental psychology, and neuropsychology, he states “Your child is born with more than 400 psychological traits that will emerge as they mature and they have nothing to do with you [parent].” You are not going to engineer the child you have into your picture of an ideal human. What you can do is to recognize that your role is more analogous to that of a shepherd who cares for their flock. Barkley begs parents to recognize that their children are “a genetic mosaic of your extended family.” Recognizing that your role as a parent is to be a shepherd to a unique individual will provide a door to let go of guilt and focus on what you can control and what you cannot control.
You can to some extent control the environment you create in your home, the other sheep you invite into your field and you can protect the sheep from harm when they are under your watch. You can help them learn to protect themselves.
If you have more than one child, what you learned with your first child may not apply to your second child - they simply are not the same person. You do not treat them exactly the same, because each child is unique with unique behaviors and parenting is about relationships.
The peak years of parental influence are below 7 years of age. During these years encourage the unique strengths of your child, be responsive, set the example, set boundaries, and be responsive. After age 16 the impact of parental influence falls below 6%. The irony is that as the influence of peers becomes a predominant factor in your child’s life you as a parent are having less control over choosing your child’s peer group.
This is why you need to recognize that where you choose to live during the teen years is more influential than the environment in your home. As Judith Rich Harris reminds us in The Nurture Assumption:Why Children Turn out the Way They Do, “the tendency of children to take cues from their peers works to their evolutionary advantage.” A child takes cues of how to behave within a context. So how they behave at home will be different then how they behave in other contexts, especially when parents are not around.
Social comparison is a key part of discovering who you are, especially in the teen years. Teens want to be like their peers but also unique. Anyone who lived through the 70s knows cultural norms are not passed down by all of the adults in a child's life. Instead culture is passed on by the child’s peer group.
Harris points out that laughter is the favorite weapon of peer groups. Laughter is how children keep other children in line with the norms and expectations of the group. Pay attention to what peer groups are laughing and what they are laughing about. A child’s goal is seldom to become a successful adult, a child’s goal is to become a successful child.
Stop trying to engineer the perfect child.
Recognize that your role is to shepherd the unique child you have.
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