Today’s post is the last in our Parenting Around the World series based on Christine Gross-Loh’s Parenting Without Borders. You can read more about our next venture, The Brilliant Book Club for Parents, here.
Completing these last chapters from Parenting Without Borders, I’ve had the yin/yang image in my mind: the merging of opposites, the interconnectedness of contrary forces. The yin/yang symbol comes to us from the Taoist tradition, but is also a powerful reminder of the two divergent, yet reinforcing, philosophies bestowed upon the world by China: Confucianism and Taoism. Taoism is all nature and spontaneity and go with the flow, in contrast to the rigidity and structure and formalized ritual of Confucianism.
But life is both. Parenting is both. It is earthy and primal and romantic, and rule-bound and responsible and classical.
For our previous post about helicopter parenting, I wrote about the “Tao of Parenting,” and the need to give our children freedom and downtime, and to trust their innate wisdom.
Today, it’s all about Confucian structure and rules and expectations. The yin and the yang.
Creating Deliberate Tradition
The world is torn apart by warfare, violence, and surprise attacks. The social cohesion and group solidarity of the past are crumbling. Traditions are weakening. In the place of notions of collective responsibility we have individualism and selfishness running rampant.
Does this sound like the latest critique of twenty-first century America?
It’s actually the set of problems Confucius identified facing China over 2500 years ago!
And Confucius’ solution was surprisingly similar to the recommendations in the last chapters of Parenting Without Borders about character: if the social glue is coming undone, it must be deliberately recreated through ritual and tradition.
Gross-Loh argues that in our American pursuit of happiness, we have devalued the social conventions of propriety and civility. We teach our children to “express themselves” and “be assertive,” even if that means hurting the feelings of others. We value individual happiness over compassion for others. She believes we need to work deliberately to develop our children’s character, which she defines as encompassing empathy, kindness, civility, and compassion.
In the self-esteem movement of the 1970s and 1908s, she argues, we swung too far on the pendulum, believing that if kids feel happy, they’ll be kind to others. But instead it works the other way around: teaching kids to be kind and compassionate to others will improve their own sense of self, much the way academic achievement promotes self-esteem, rather than the reverse.
Raising Kids with Character
So how do we do this? How do we raise responsible, kind, and compassionate children?
The research on character development in children is encouraging. According to Paul Tough in How Children Succeed, character is not “something innate and unchanging, a core set of attributes that define one’s very essence”; it is instead “a set of abilities or strengths that are very much changeable [and] entirely malleable.” Confucius would have agreed.
Teach Compassion
Compassion is often defined as being able to erase the distinction between self and other. It is about removing oneself from the center of the world, and placing another there. It is at the heart of every major religious tradition. In fact, we often describe our deepest religious experiences as “ecstasy,” which comes from the Greek “ekstasis,” meaning to step outside oneself.
Confucius saw compassion as important as well. He believed all people needed to strive to embody Jen, which translates as “human-heartedness.” It means to approach others with courtesy, unselfishness, and empathy.
We can begin to teach our young children compassion by teaching them to take another’s perspective. Cognitive psychology reveals that this is a harder task than it sounds. Though research findings vary, most children do not develop what is referred to as a Theory of Mind until the ages of 3 or 4. A Theory of Mind is the ability to recognize that other people have different mental states {ideas, beliefs, dispositions, or perspectives} than one’s own. Think of the two-year-old who covers her eyes and yells, “You can’t see me!” or who constantly interrupts her mother while she’s on the phone, not realizing that her mother’s mind is engaged in listening to another person.
But we can begin to encourage our children to consider other people’s perspectives through asking them questions about the books they are reading, or asking them to reflect on an argument: “How do you think your brother feels when you yell at him?” Learning to see the world from another person’s perspective, and being able to understand the needs of another person, is the beginning of developing empathy and compassion.
Teach Manners
Though I don’t really see this among my parent-friends, Gross-Loh argues that as a culture, we shy away from teaching children manners because they seem too rigid and appear to stifle a child’s individuality. But in my experience, my friends and I all seem to believe that teaching manners — the pleases and thank-yous, the hellos and goodbyes — are essential to teaching children a fundamental respect for others.
Confucius
{photo credit: IvanWalsh.com via photopin cc}
Confucius stressed the importance of Li, which translates to “propriety.” If the social fabric is unravelling, reweave it through the creation of deliberate tradition and ritual, which encompasses the behaviors for all social situations and relationships. According to religious scholar Huston Smith in The World’s Religions, this turns the individual’s life into a “stylized [and] sacred dance. Social life has been choreographed…. There is a pattern for every act, … right down to the way you entertain the humblest guest in your home and bring out the tea…. Li was Confucius’ blueprint for the well-conducted life.”
It’s not just about teaching children the script, the manners, and the social rules. It’s about teaching them to recognize and honor another person. To look them in the eye and say, “Hi. How are you?” It’s a fundamental courtesy.
Gross-Loh mentions the argument that we shouldn’t force a child to say, “I’m sorry” if they don’t understand what the words mean, or if it’s not a true sentiment. But she argues that actions can precede feelings, and that children should learn the proper social ritual for when one’s actions have harmed another. Coupled with the teaching of compassion, children will eventually learn the meaning behind these words.
Treating others with respect and compassion can become a form of spiritual practice. From her time in Japan, in which her children learned the very specific social dance for personal interactions, Gross-Loh writes, “I came to see how daily greetings could almost become like a form of daily meditation to train each of us to be mindful and focus our attention outside ourselves, even if just for a moment.” I love that line. 🙂
Expect Children to Help Out at Home
With our busy schedules of school, homework, and activities, the hours that American children spend on household chores have declined significantly in the past several decades. But part of building character and responsibility in children is giving them responsibility in the home. Even children as young as three can be asked to help out with setting the table, and certainly with putting away their own toys. Gross-Loh cites numerous examples of the chores required of young children in other cultures.
I teach my children that it is OUR house, and therefore we all have a responsibility to keep the house clean, even if “I didn’t do it!!!” The hard part of this for me is that {spoiler alert!} I am a bit of a control freak, and sometimes it is all I can do to not rush in and make the bed for my daughter because when she makes it, it’s kinda sloppy. But she needs to learn to contribute to keeping the house neat.
I remember once visiting my children’s daycare at lunchtime, and watching my son {when he was in the toddler room} bring his plate and silverware to the garbage, scrape off the remaining food, and then place his dishes in the washbin. I had never thought he was capable of that at eighteen months! Gross-Loh argues that our children are capable of much more than we think, and we can begin instilling a sense of responsibility in them at a young age.
Expect Older Children to Help Care for Younger Children
In Confucius’ Five Constant Relationships, one of them is Older Sibling/Younger Sibling, in which the older sibling is expected to be gentle to and nurturing of the younger one. Yet we often feel like we don’t want to burden our older children with this responsibility. However, it is common in other cultures for older siblings to be given a great deal of responsibility for their younger siblings.
My daughter loves to nurture and care for her little brother, although sometimes I discourage it because I want him to be independent, or I tell her to “worry about” herself. But what does that message teach her? I think often I say that to her just to reduce the noise when I am dealing with a challenging situation with Liam, but I certainly don’t want to stifle her compassion for her brother, and the lessons she can learn by helping him.
Just the other night, the kids were playing outside on the slip-and-slide while my husband grilled steaks. When the kids came inside dripping wet, I was in the middle of sautĂ©ing veggies and couldn’t help them. I asked my daughter to help her brother dry off and get changed out of his swimsuit. She said, “That’s a REALLY BIG FAVOR, Mom,” but nonetheless shepherded her brother upstairs.
He came downstairs fully dried, dressed, and with his hair brushed, and I could tell that my daughter was proud of her efforts. And the anecdotal evidence that nurturing others fosters compassion? They actually hugged each other at the dinner table, and proclaimed “Abby and Liam Day” and snuggle time for the rest of the evening.
Model Compassion and Kindness
This is probably the most obvious one, but if we want our children to have good manners and be kind and compassionate, we need to act that way ourselves. And it’s not just about saying “please” and “thank you.” Tangible acts of kindness — volunteering or charity work or helping our neighbors — show our kids that we really mean it.
The Yin and the Yang of Parenting
Taoism is all about spontaneity and being natural. And there are times when we need to trust our children’s instinctual wisdom and give them freedom and time in the natural world.
Yet Confucianism teaches us that man is an animal without instincts. Dogs and lions and even ants all have instincts that allow them to function in their societies without culture, or formal education, or parenting blogs. Humans are the only animals that live not only in a society, but in a culture. And to function in our culture, we need rules, rituals, and deliberate tradition to foster the kindness and compassion that is needed to live harmoniously with others.
The “Tao of Parenting” and the “Confucian Deliberate Tradition” are part of the yin and yang of parenting. May we all find our balance. Namaste.
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Read more about raising kids with character from these amazing bloggers:
Deb @ Urban Moo Cow: “Please Don’t Make Me Explain the Importance of Thank You”
Jessica @ School of Smock: “Carry Your Own Bag: Raising Kids Who aren’t Helpless”
Lauren @ Omnimom: “My Biggest Parenting Critic Right Now? My Eight-Year-Old”
Stephanie @ Mommy, For Real: “Shaping Our Children’s Character: How Much Molding is Too Much?”
I’ve had so much fun exploring the research about parenting practices around the world. Our next post about parenting research will be on Monday, September 30, and we will be writing about Hilary Levey Friedman’s Playing to Win, which looks at what it’s like to raise kids in a competitive culture. You can read more about the Brilliant Book Club here.
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Top photo credit: DonkeyHotey via photopin cc
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