We are spoiling our children

I don't mean in the 'buying them tons of crap' way (although we do that too) I mean in the 'stifling them by protecting them' way.

We are told to tell children they are great and that we are proud of them at every turn (and no I'm not advocating telling them they are vile and frankly, when snotty, an embarrassment), we are encouraged to spout the 'You can be what ever you want to be' mantra, and at party time, pass-the-parcel now has to be sure to contain the EXACT number of layers so that EVERY CHILD gets a turn and ...and every layer must have a prize!

We are in Wonderland, where everybody has won and all shall have prizes!

Life is not like that. Childhood is practice for life. Playing is important but only if we let it be real. I don't suggest snapping all your child's toys into pieces and yelling 'Life is tough! Deal with it!' when they are 4, but letting your child win every game (or even 'a fair share' of games) doesn't help them.

All animals play and as they grow and get older the play changes too. Play is a way animals learn about their peers, what will work at making a friend or an enemy, how to get along, how to stay safe. If we tell our children all to 'play nice' that might be fine until the day they come across a child that has never been told that. I have always told DD we don't do hitting. But I have also (for example) explained how to keep herself safe should someone hit her! (no one has ever hit her so she has never, yet, had to use the advice)

Children need time to find things out with minimal adult supervision as they grow. We need to keep them alive and free from injury; but hurt feelings, and how to deal with them, are a thing that needs to be learned. Being sad and the feelings that surround that are very real, play can help children learn how to cope later when they are adults.

Failing is something that will happen one day (unless you are amazingly lucky!) and far better that you have learned how to cope with failure when it was (relatively) unimportant than to have it thrust upon you for the first time as a young adult.

Children certainly need to know we love them, but not that we love them because they are clever, or a winner, or pretty, we love them because they are 'them'.

Do you remember the first time you failed or were sad or felt something wasn't fair? Were you a child? How did you cope?

Maybe you think I'm wrong? Should childhood be a happy protected time where fairness and laughter rule?

Love to hear your comments.

Things to do - fun free family frolics!

Autumn is suddenly here. Today it's raining as well as chilly. Proper ' stay at home and watch a black and white movie with a hot toddy' weather.

And that's great, for an adult, for a Sunday, for one day. But those with children (and I count myself among you still, despite dd being nearly 14) know that after a few days ... Hours ... minutes, kids will chill our very marrow with the cry of "I'm bored!" And the equally horrifying "what can I DO?" 

And the usual thrusting of a child into the back garden to play with football, trampoline or skipping rope is thwarted by rain, and trips to the playground curtailed because "no one will be there to play with" and "the slide will be wet" so we the parent are reduced to playing Lego in the lounge, painting in the pantry, cooking in the kitchen or beading in the bedroom.

You, like me, probably love to be with your kids, love to be with HAPPY kids, so I asked twitter for some ideas to add to the anti-whine arsenal and here they are.

Play with your food

I'm 'aving 'oops! 
In fact DD and I are having Hoops and Crosses! Thanks to a rather cute gift package from Walkers Crisps, DD and I had the perfect chance to play with our food this weekend. A new baked snack, with wholegrain in hoops and cross shapes just begged to be played with (and eaten) but before that we had to release Monty a cheeky monkey fellow accompanied by a book telling us just why we ought to be trying Hoops and Crosses from Walkers in DD's lunch box instead of crisps.

 Our monkey book tells us the snacks are 56% wholgrain, that 27% of children get no wholegrains in their diet at all (sad but not really a surprise) and that Hoops and Crosses come in 3 flavours, Salt and Vinegar (in the wrong colour bag, don't get me started), Beef (which we tried, after DD declared "I don't like beef flavour crisps" than ate some and added "except these, these are nice") and Prawn Cocktail (a good old British favourite in a jolly pink bag)

Now  DD doesn't regularly have crisps (I deem them 'junk food' and too salty) but we are of course human and we do have treats now and again so we will certainly be buying this (slightly) healthier optton in future. 

And to add to the fun, a few strands of uncooked spaghetti make a rather fine 'board' on which to play. I noted that when I was about to win a row, DD would hastily eat one of my pieces, but it was fun despite the cheating. So a rather fun and tasty snack, a great way to shovel some wholegrains into a child and not too bad a snack as a grown up either, a long time since I've had a crispy beef snack, I think they'd go well with beer :-)

Thanks to Walkers Crisps for sending us a bag to try (and for Monty our new monkey friend).