Parenting

Travis wrote the following on his blog, Living as a foreigner . To comment and read his original post Click here.

The following is a mobile post, meaning it may have typos, incomplete thoughts, it may not even make any sense – enjoy!

Yesterday Alexis posted on her facebook status a parenting question, one that was really more rhetorical in nature than advice seeking, nonetheless people chimed in. The question centered around, how much do we keep telling Emma that pulling on either of our cat's tails is a "no no"?

Now, the deal is both of our cats are really very patient with Emma and as of yet she has not been scratched, but yesterday the cat who we have never heard hiss (aka, Janek the nice one) actually hissed at Emma after she once again yanked his tail. The other cat hisses all the time, and scratches adults commonly, yet hasn't scratched Emma yet.

So, wer'e at this point of knowing the inevitable, Emma's going to get scratched at some point, even though we're watching her constantly, it's really a fact of nature that if you harrass an animal for too long, even the most kindest of animals, will get annoyed at some point. Where is the point where you let a child learn the "natural" consequences? I think it's at the point where Emma is, where she knows what NO means. But she doesn't quite see the "why" behind it. Of course we'll prevent it as much as possible, we're not to put her and the cats together and wait for her to get scratched. We do know at some point though, it will happen.

So, we'll continue to say no, and we'll continue to tell the cats no as well when they hiss or bat at people. Since we know that the life God has called us to involves all kinds of environments out side of our control (mainly life) we'll do our absolute best to explain life to our children, and that includes natural consequences which we'll do best to explain ahead of the events and consule, love, and bring light to their world after bad things happen.

It's hard for me to not be in agreement with other parents, especially my friends, but I also realize that God has shown us a lot in life through things. One piece of it is the fact that we don't have full control over Emma or even our own lives. what other parents do is what they have the option to do, even if we are not on the same page.

Emma’s Blog, Reach Polska Blog, Donate to REACH Polska, Alexis’ Blog.


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