This blog subject came to me on Sunday at the annual Easter egg hunt. Since my children are all part of the “older generation” of teenagers (as my daughter called them), they really aren’t part of the little ones who head out with baskets and bags to hunt the eggs. Instead, they make up the clean-up crew who go around and gather up all the eggs the littler ones miss. So, my teen daughters and I sat on a bench as watched as the under 8-year-old group of cousins and nieces and nephews trundled off in their rubber boots through the high grass.
It was interesting to watch the various parenting styles at work and ponder over the motivations–there were the completely “hands off” parents who let their children wander off without help to search for the eggs on their own; and then there were the parents who tagged along as support, mostly just to keep company, enjoy the hunt along side the child, and occasionally provide a little guidance such as “if I was an egg, I might just hang out in that big clump of grass around the apple tree;” and then, there were the competitive, results-oriented parents who pointed out each and every egg, actually taking an arm and steering the child, or physically turning the head in the direction of the hidden egg to make sure it wasn’t missed. As always, I recognized more of my own self in the middle-road parenting…
Those children with the overly-directive parents soon lost interest and gave up the hunt. It obviously wasn’t fun and they didn’t seem to feel like they were part of the other group of scrambling children. They were there to perform for the parents and make sure they gathered their fair share. The kids who were on their own did fine–especially the older kids (those over seven or eight), who seemed to prefer to go off with a cousin or brother than a parent anyway. The younger ones, however, seemed to experience the most delight with a guiding, encouraging parent walking a few steps behind–close enough to be involved, but removed enough to be letting them hunt eggs on their own.
See Also: Five Ways to Boost a Child’s Confidence and Are We Expecting Our Kids to Be Super-Human?