Responsibility and Trust. This is what I will try to get into today. Yesterday I wanted to start on 'ethics' and ended somewhere on trust. The relationship between us and our children is hard to manage sometimes. I think the constant calibration to their age and what they cognitively are able to process can be a real challenge.
I don't yet have teenage kids, but one of my biggest fears is 'loosing' them at that age. I didn't want much to do with my parents at that age, but I believe that it is quite important to have the support system of your parents in those turbulent years. We are responsible as parents for that relationship as long as they are under our care.
With all that our of the way, I want to try to pick up on yesterdays thread. Giving our children a tracking device can be a breach of trust. Especially if they don't know it. It also signals to our children that they cannot be trusted 100%. This will not help them become capable and independent adults. The mere fact that there is safety net, in whatever shape or form, will become a dependency which will follow them into adulthood.
This is also part of Jonathan Haidt's message in both "The Coddling of the American Mind", and "The Anxious Generation". We need to foster independence and self reliance. Not fragility and anxiety.
To sum up today's and yesterdays post, I think that a tracking device can lead to a worse mental state in both parent and child. Their co-dependence is something to be nourished as well as tested. Trust can be a fickle thing, and I fear that if we do not leave our teenagers alone to figure some things out, we risk more than just a weekend tantrum.
- Trolz
I don't yet have teenage kids, but one of my biggest fears is 'loosing' them at that age. I didn't want much to do with my parents at that age, but I believe that it is quite important to have the support system of your parents in those turbulent years. We are responsible as parents for that relationship as long as they are under our care.
With all that our of the way, I want to try to pick up on yesterdays thread. Giving our children a tracking device can be a breach of trust. Especially if they don't know it. It also signals to our children that they cannot be trusted 100%. This will not help them become capable and independent adults. The mere fact that there is safety net, in whatever shape or form, will become a dependency which will follow them into adulthood.
This is also part of Jonathan Haidt's message in both "The Coddling of the American Mind", and "The Anxious Generation". We need to foster independence and self reliance. Not fragility and anxiety.
To sum up today's and yesterdays post, I think that a tracking device can lead to a worse mental state in both parent and child. Their co-dependence is something to be nourished as well as tested. Trust can be a fickle thing, and I fear that if we do not leave our teenagers alone to figure some things out, we risk more than just a weekend tantrum.
- Trolz