By Community Affairs

Raising Kids

Jan 31, 2015 | 9:52 AM

Social media has become a big part of many people’s lives. It is a fantastic medium for sharing personal information with family and friends and share information we feel might be interesting to our group.

Much of the information is in the form of meme’s: photos with a famous quote (usually attributed to the wrong person) or a philosophy. Some are funny cultural views.

Personally, I love these and share many bits of information, be it personal, informational or in the form of memes.

But recently, I have noticed more and more that much of the information and the memes is judgemental in a sneaky way, and many have a lot to do with judging other people’s parenting.

Parenting our children has become a minefield. It has grown overly complicated, with people standing back ready to judge you for better or for worse on every aspect of how you raise your child(ren).

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I have been very lucky and very blessed in my parenting to have a neighbour in her mid 90s who raised a herd of children and was a professional, a nurse.

Occasionally, we have talked about parenting as she has watched my little guy grow from an itsy bitsy preemie to a boisterous 9 year old. Her eyes have seen so much; have witnessed the changes in parenting through the years. One summer day, talking over the fence, she and I were discussing my son and the parenting minefield all parents face now. She said something to me that has helped tremendously in my personal parenting philosophy, though her observation is unachievable now.

She said that parenting was easier when she was raising her family.

Yes, easier! Why?

Because everyone raised their children by the same rules. There was a sense of “it takes a village to raise a child” and adults freely and without hesitation disciplined other people’s kids based on the cultural norm of the community. Kids did roam around freely because there were always many sets of eyes on them.

She said that now, there are so many ways of rearing a child and the rules are vastly different from family to family. In our society, no adult would dare to discipline another child (this is even a challenge for teachers and principals, coaches and others who work with kids), or to even help a child for fear of reprisals.

The memes and articles on Facebook are proof of this.

Looking back to my own childhood – I could remember that all kids pretty much did have the same rules and I do remember getting heck from other adults and other relatives. This WAS the norm.

So, with my own upbringing in mind and the discussion with Veronica from across the fence in mind, I have created a set of parameters for raising my own child.

I have decided that I will raise my son to be the kind of man I want him to be. In our family we don’t have a lot of rules but the rules are non-negotiable. I don’t punish him much – but maybe I haven’t had to because the rules have been clear since he was an early toddler.

1. He must be respectful
2. He must be truthful
3. He must be kind
4. He must try his best (he doesn’t have to BE the best but he has to TRY HIS best)

Yes, in our single parent family, we only have a few rules but the rules are vast. I feel that these basic premises will help me raise a son who will become a good partner, a good employee or employer, a good parent….I hope.

Is he always meeting the standard? No way. Of course he isn’t. But, the above are my parameters…our goals. In the end, I guess I just want to raise a good person.

In my neighbor’s day, families were basically the same and any of the things that made them different were cleverly hidden. In our society now, we all have different family dynamics. We acknowledge family “issues”. We all come from a “different place” as parents. As a result, we have different “rules”, different rewards, and different punishments; different ways of dealing with the raising of future adults.

In reality – we all are just doing the best we can and part of being respectful (as I expect my child to be) is recognizing difference in others, and that my way, is not the highway, as the saying goes.

Fortunately, unlike in Veronica’s day, there are many, many resources in our community to help parents who feel they are off track, who feel overwhelmed, who have special needs children, who are going through divorce or breakup, who have experienced addictions, family violence or any number of other issues.

Going through Community Group News and our Columns in the Opinions pages, you will find any number of resources to help and guide you in your parenting journey.

You will also find sport and culture information to help you make your journey with your child or children a happy and rich and enjoyable one. Some of the sports and cultural events are designed to work as various forms of therapy: music therapy, art therapy, working with horses(equine assisted learning) which has benefitted so many children including those with autism.

And remember, while wanting respect with your family journey – have respect for others.

If you are looking for help or suggestions of family therapy, child therapy, family assistance, sports, culture options, please feel free to email me at kcay@panow.com and I will direct you to any number of resources – many of which come free of charge.