Trust is essential to raising capable, happy, self-confident children. Belief in our children’s competence is vital to their sense of self-worth and can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. And yet, trusting kids to handle even the most benign, age-appropriate situations is sometimes difficult for parents.

What are we so afraid of? This is the question that came up for me when Karen shared this discouraging incident:

Hi Janet,

I had a very unfortunate experience taking my 3-year-old to his first Easter Egg Hunt. The announcers insisted many times that no parents cross the tape with the kids (except for the ‘babies’ age group)… So in the 2&3-year-old group, I waited behind a line of a few kids and parents and got ready to video my son when they said, “Go.” Next thing I know, parents stormed the field, pushing their own kids to go faster and picking up the eggs for their kids. My son didn’t stand a chance. He got zero eggs. He wandered around for a few moments looking but then just stood there confused. Luckily, I was more bothered by the whole thing than he was, but I couldn’t help but think how sad it was and how the scene epitomized a very negative aspect of our parenting culture.

We will have our own Easter egg hunt at home from now on, actually hiding eggs. I thought of you, though, because I don’t blog, and this is worth discussing.

The video ends abruptly because I stopped shooting when I realized what was happening. Now I wish I’d kept the video running longer. A picture’s worth a thousand words. I know I don’t have to explain what is wrong with this scenario — you already know.

(Sigh)

Karen and Hughey (3)

Hm. Well, off the top of my head, I would point out that rather than enjoying an age-appropriate adventure, an opportunity to socialize with peers, and possibly finding an egg or two, these children learned:

You can’t do it yourself, so you need parents to do it for you Don’t bother following directions Egg hunts are about competing to get the most “stuff”

Your thoughts?

(I share a somewhat similar experience in my post: Why Not Draw for a Child?)

Photo by Ian Burt on Flickr