Structure

It is commonly understood to be true that children need structure to thrive.  I wonder where this came from.  Is it like the understanding of a century or more ago that children were naturally bad and had to be beaten to turn out good?  Spare the rod and spoil the child?

I was lying in bed thinking about it.  I couldn't stop so I got up to write this down and hopefully I will be able to go back to sleep since I have to drive 2 hours tomorrow to visit the Bean's friend and then who knows how long home in Labor Day traffic.

I think the idea that children need structure to thrive is partially true, especially in today's world.  So many of the parts of their lives are structured that if the whole thing wasn't structured, the children would completely fall apart.  Also, parents need children to be structured so they can go about the business of making enough money to pay the bills.  If I didn't have to go to work in the mornings, I could stay awake with the Bean until he was ready to go to sleep around midnight, sleep in with him 'til 10 then gradually start our day.

However, if we accept that structure is necessary to some degree, the next questions we should be asking are "what kind?" and "how much/", not just accept that structure is always good regardless of its quality.  I think that "how much?" can be easily answered as "never more than strictly necessary."  On the other hand "what kind?" moves very quickly into the realm of discipline and what we, as individual parents, feel our role is.  Personally, I feel that all of the structure should be supportive rather than restrictive, should be developed rather than enforced.  This is a tough line since children, lacking key components necessary to use good judgement, need to be kept alive long enough to develop those components. 

It also means that parents have to be much more involved with their children.  They have to stay in tune with changes in ability and growing needs for autonomy.  They have to be sufficiently aware to stand back and let the child become entangled in the rose bush and then be there to untangle him when he realizes it is beyond him.  They also have to reinforce the lesson they want the child to learn.  In my case, the lesson I want the Bumble Bean to learn is: Try it and see. If you can't do it, ask for help.

I'm not sure any of this makes sense, but I'm feeling sleepy again, so I will leave it for now.  There is something here between Attachment Parenting and John Holt's admonishment to TRUST CHILDREN.