Guidance is very necessary to success. I don’t even want to know what would have happened to the young karate kid if good man Miyagi wasn’t there to teach him the ways of karate. Without such guidance, one could get very lost. It's my perception that most parents have a big fear of their children getting lost in life, and that's why they stress guidance (much to kids' dismay).
“Do this, Johnny. It’ll be a good experience for your future career.”
“Becky, you need to go to dance class in order to make varsity in eight years.”
Yes, perhaps it is a good thing for your parents to schedule events and classes for you when you are young. That way, you have lots of structure in your life. Humans thrive when performing in a structured environment. On the contrary, people, especially young children, need freedom to experience a variety of activities in order to find that structure previously mentioned. Here’s why.
As a child, my parents were pretty free-willed with what I could and could not do. I really feel like that has become so crucial to how open-minded I am in my ways now. This has allowed me to bloom as a person and as an individual extensively, but this wasn't really the case with my older brothers. They did so many different things with their lives. Being the youngest, I strove to be like them in almost every way you can imagine. This put a damper on my open-mindedness for a while. Throughout elementary school and up through high school, I was constantly trying to escape their shadow. Anyone with older siblings will absolutely understand.
What I didn’t realize before was that I couldn’t escape their shadow if I kept doing the same crap they did when they were my age. Now that I’ve come to school here at KU, I’ve began to step out of the shadow. I’ve spread my wings a little bit, for those of you who are into the whole metaphor idea. This is where I want to thank my parents. They did a very good job of letting me experiment with who I spent my time with and what I chose to do with that time, and for that, I thank them.
I recommend that if you are a parent or are planning on being one at any point in the future, give your kids some breathing room. Let your boy take a dance class if he wants to. Let your girl play some flag football. Just don’t hold them back. Let them soar with their own kind of wings, not the ones you want to fly with. This may lead to some poor decisions by them, but you don’t learn without poor decisions. I like to look at it that way because I technically “learn” every week under that basis. And my parents allow me to “learn” every week.
In summary, no, I’m not telling you how to raise your kid, but I am suggesting something. Take it or leave it, either way, the comment section is very welcoming to anything you want to say.
