“I want to be transparent with you.”
This was something I used to tell my students when I taught high school. I used this line to start any conversation where I wanted to be open and honest with them. Maybe it was about the administration requiring me to do something I didn’t believe in, or the testing schedule was conflicting with the learning. Regardless, I believed in having open communication with my students. After all, I expected them to have open communication with each other and myself.
I first heard this line by my mentor, who also believed in being honest with his students. At first I wondered, why show such vulnerability? Wouldn’t students see this as a weakness? We are the teachers. They are students. Those are clear roles that have clear boundaries. We don’t need to justify anything to them. But my mentor made me realize this was not a form of weakness, it was a strength. It was a way to build the relationship, to build rapport.
So, readers, I want to be transparent with you.
In my last post, I wrote about an incident that happened with my mom and my son. After replaying this incident in my head, re-reading my post about it, and speaking with my mom several times about it, I found myself questioning this parenting philosophy I have chosen.
Honestly, this was not the first time I heard the little voice in my head wondering, is this the right way?
How do I know RIE will work?
How do I know I am not creating emotional scars for my child?
What if positive parenting is just a ‘trend’ right now?
What if in a few years several articles written by PhD so-and-so, and studies done by Ivy League what’s-it-called come out showing RIE is a bust?
I know I am not the only mom that wonders if what I am doing on the daily is hurting or helping my child.
I am an over-thinker. And I am sensitive. Which means, I take most things to heart and I tend to over-think everything to the point of exhaustion. So when there is just a little bit of doubt about what I am doing, it gets amplified in my head.
But I didn’t choose RIE because it sounded nice at the time. I chose to follow this philosophy because it spoke to me, to who I am.
I chose RIE because it is a way of parenting, and a way of life, centered on the idea of respect.
And that idea means the world to me.
But it is hard because it is different. I know I am going against the grain when I avoid screen time with my son, when I speak to him like an adult, when I ask if I can pick him up before doing so. I am aware of all these things. It is very different than what most people are used to. It is very different than how my parents raised me.
Sometimes I feel like I know exactly what Robert Frost was talking about when he said to take the road less traveled. And I hope it does make all the difference.
But the hardest part is not only that it is different, because it is. No, the hardest part is not offending anyone else’s parenting style knowing how different mine is to theirs. Because parenting is not black and white. Parenting is not even gray, it is a swirl of colors and ideas. Since every person is different, every style of parenting is different. And there is no right or wrong because what works for some might not work for others. As the worlds biggest ‘learn on the job’ type of job, it really depends on who you are and what you believe to be true.
My parents did not raise me using RIE. There were a lot of things they did that would be considered anti-RIE. But here’s the thing, I don’t ever for a second think about their parenting in a bad way.
When I was pregnant and reading left and right about babies and discipline, all I kept coming back to in my head was how incredible my parents handled everything. I put them up on a pedestal and decided I would use them as my guide because my parents instilled in us the characteristics I hope to see in my son one day.
And look, maybe they had no idea what they were doing at the time. But overall (and obviously I am super biased) I think they did a fantastic job.
Therefore, for me to choose this style of parenting that is so different, is not easy. As willing as my amazing mom is to learn with me and try everything I ask of her, I can see how hard it is for her to do things against what she is used to. Consequently, I am having a lot of difficulty sustaining my own passion for this philosophy.
I am questioning myself, because what if ‘respect’ is not enough. When my son is crying, my heart breaks. Of course I want him to stop because he is sad, which makes me sad. And I love him so much that I don’t ever want him to feel sad. But Magda Gerber, founder of RIE, once said “Many awful things have been done in the name of love, but nothing awful can be done in the name of respect.”
What is she referring to?
Well, let’s take the case of a child crying:
- Showing them love is assuming that when children cry, they are sad. In order to stop feeling sad, they need to stop crying. So we make them stop.
- Showing them respect is teaching our children how to sit with their uncomfortable feelings and work through them.
We cannot really limit how someone feels, regardless if that someone is an adult or child. It’s not up to us to decide how long someone else needs to cry to get the emotions out. The adult’s job who is nearby, ANY adult nearby, is to let the feelings be, for as long as they need to. RIE is about giving our children emotional freedom, because our children cannot regulate their emotions the way we as adults can. They learn to regulate emotions only through experience. So let them experience strong emotions. Let them experience processing those emotions. And let them experience what it feels like to come out the other side.
We are teaching emotional intelligence.
Ok all this sounds nice… but the fact still remains that this is just so different than what most parents do and believe. And I don’t have an answer for you. I don’t know if my child will end up with more emotional intelligence than other children, or if following this style of parenting will give my son emotional scars. I don’t know if positive parenting will get my son to be more creative and hard working. I have no idea if openly communicating with him will give him a better vocabulary. Who knows if modeling respect will make him be respectful to himself and others.
Sometimes, I don’t know if RIE will work.
Maybe Robert Frost was wrong, maybe the road less traveled will not make all the difference.
But I started this blog because I wanted to share my experiences with you, the good and the bad. Maybe when I reach post # 29,583 we will laugh together about how silly and naive I was in the beginning… Maybe.
But a fellow RIE mom was giving advice to another mom who was having doubts about baby-led play and it really resonated. Here is what she wrote:
“It sounds like you are using RIE with a goal in mind. Try to let go of that. RIE kids are not more creative, or independent, or able, than any other kids. They are just more *themselves*. It is hard to let go when you just want the best for your son, but really trust him. He is doing what he needs to do. Try not to compare him to others. The only goal of RIE is really to have the tools to truly allow our kids to be who they are.“
Thank you fellow RIE mom, for reminding me of what RIE is really about and why I believe in it so much.