Skip to main content

Slow Parenting

If slow cooking results in something that is better tasting and more nutritious than fast food, chances are slow parenting is better than the hot-housing formula. As the author describes it "Much of Slow Parenting is simply re-learning how things used to be before we starting treating parenting as product development, or as something to be learned via books, videos, magazines or classes."

A parent who eschews the hot-housing method may be called a "free-range parent". Assuming the parent is hands-off and allows the child to be a child sometimes and engage in mindless activity, wouldn't it be the child that was being raised "free range" ? The analogy to poultry or cattle is a little disconcerting but other than that I am on board with the idea.

J has activities she participates in after-school and outside school. I figure that keeps her and I plenty busy and whatever downtime we get over the weekends should be strictly that - downtime. Many parents I know have kids who keep a busier schedule than J does but make sure to get in a healthy dose of fun. For an activity to be tagged "fun", there must be a good amount of time and money spent  and significant distance traveled. Fun and home simply do not coincide.

A low cost, low effort outing is only a step above the sublimely boring business of staying home and not a candidate for the "fun" tag. By the popular operating definition, the art and craft projects J and I work on togther, the board games we play, the music we introduce each other to , the stuff we talk about, the movies we watch or the books she and I read together, do not really qualify as fun. I must be an idle-parent.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
As the Director for the Center for Slow Parenting Studies LLC, I am excited to report that our latest surveys reveal that many parents are catching on to the notion that there is inherent value in a childs opportunity to experience more....wait a minute... what do you call it again...it is an old antiquated term....oh yeah HAPPINESS (I'm sure you've heard of it!) www.slowparent.org
10:06 PM
Laurie Colacini Stanton said…
If you are a slow parent, or would like to be, visit www.slowparent.org for free tips!!
10:10 PM
Anonymous said…
Slow parenting can be extended to create a sustainable, respectful and fun relationship with your children, especially teens. More that just unscheduling your kids, which is a good idea if they respond well to it and know success, slow parenting asks parents to get to know their kids well, to respect them, to listen to them, to support their growth ( with consequences as well as praise) and to do it everyday. INterested? Check out slowparentingteens.com or blog. slowparentingteens.com.
Molly Wingate and Marti Woodward
10:55 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t
111 comments
Read more

Cheese Making

I never fail to remind J that there is a time and place for everything. It is possibly the line she will remember me by when I am dead and gone given how frequently she hears it. Instead of having her breakfast she will break into a song and dance number from High School Musical well past eight on Monday morning. She will insist that I watch and applaud the performance instead of screaming at her to finish her milk and cereal. Her sense of occasion is seriously lacking but then so is mine. Consider for example, a person walks into the grocery store with the express purpose of buying detergent because they are fresh out of it and laundry is only half way done. However instead of heading straight for detergent, they wander over to the natural foods aisle and go berserk upon finding goat milk on sale for a dollar a gallon. They at once proceed to stock pile so they can turn it to huge quantities home-made feta cheese. That person would be me. It would not concern me in the least that I ha
5 comments
Read more

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques
6 comments
Read more