Don’t make it more difficult than you have to

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Some parenting advice is really complicated, long and drawn out.

Some time back, I saw a post on feeding toddlers by the Dr Sears website. It was called 17 tips for pleasing the picky eater. (No, I am not putting a link here since I disagree with it. You can go google it :P) My immediate reaction? Wow! If I had to do all that to get my kids to eat, they’d starve or I’d go mad 😀

And then there are some parenting practices just make life more difficult than it needs to be. Like how much a child must eat at every meal or needing to follow the child (not baby) around all the time in the house, etc…Perhaps with most families having fewer children and having a live-in helper, parents now have the means and energy to do the stuff that children can do by themselves?

I know a few children who still need to be fed or their mealtimes stretch interminably long and children who need someone to sit with them to get their schoolwork done.

If you are stuck in the above mode, perhaps you could take time out to see if you are overwhelmed and overstretched because you have over-complicated your life? Some of these things we do without thinking and others we do because we think it would be faster (eg feeding a child so that he can be done in 15 minutes versus 2 hours) but in the end these are the things that could be making you less productive and more resentful.

Empower your child, teach him or her independence. Don’t over complicate things.

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