Outside Influences

OUTSIDE INFLUENCES

You’ve read every parenting book, attended every class. You try your hardest: no hitting, no yelling, no verbal abuse. Lots of patience, understanding and empathy but also healthy boundaries, structure and limits. You know it all and you do it all.
Too bad about the outside influences.

Who Else Raises Your Child?

You aren’t the only one who is raising your child. There’s your spouse, for example. Your spouse didn’t necessarily read the books or take the classes and even if he did, he doesn’t necessarily agree. Maybe he believes that his strict approach is superior to the pampered, coddled parenting style that you favor. Or perhaps it’s not so much his philosophy of parenting that’s at play as his character; maybe he is impulsive, impatient, loud and overbearing. It’s just his way.

Your husband may differ from you not just in parenting style but in his approach to life as well. Maybe he likes to spend money on today’s pleasures while you think that saving for the future is the way to go. He has lots of fears that restrict his behavior, while you are the adventurous type who feels that the world is there to be explored. Whatever the differences, he teaches your children one thing while you are trying your best to teach them another. There are endless ways for spouses to be different;YOUR parenting efforts are complimented and/or complicated by those of your spouse.

Your parents may be another outside influence. You may worry about their “old-fashioned” parenting style (too harsh? too punitive?) or their indulgent grandparenty ways (too lenient? too much spoiling?). Whatever it is, it isn’t yours. It may be that you admire and trust your parents and in-laws in the handling of your children. Or, it may be that you don’t approve of their parenting techniques or some aspect of the model they provide and you worry about how all this will impact on your children’s development.

More Outside Influences

Did you know that your other children are also raising your children? While you are carefully measuring every word so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings, siblings may be freely indulging in verbal abuse as their main mode of communication with each other! Or, now that you’ve learned a few things raising your first group of kids and you’re ready to make a few parenting changes, you find that your first group raises the new batch in your old style!
And let’s not forget another major outside influence: the school. Teachers may have very different styles of childrearing than you do. In some places, their techniques of classroom management may be completely unacceptable to you.

Still More Outside Influences

The child’s peer group plays a major role in his or her life. Cousins and other extended family members have their impact. The community on your street, in your neighborhood and in your place of worship is leaving its mark. The world at large has its say through books, magazines, media and advertising. Your babysitters, nannies and other members of your household staff may teach your kids directly and indirectly by their model and behavior. These and other sources of outside influence may, of course, be positive in nature, adding to your own good input. On the other hand, they may leave negative impressions that go against your own values and messages that you are trying so hard to impart to your child.

The biggest influence outside of you is the child’s genetic inheritance—the character traits that a child is born with. Despite what you or anyone else is trying to teach, genetic characteristics can lead a child down another path. In addition, parents must sometimes watch helplessly as their child is swept away by the powerful tide of chemistry, neurology and physiology. All is not in our hands.

Can YOU really raise your child? What is it that people see when they look at your highly successful young adult? If they think “that mother did a terrific job” they are oversimplifying to the extreme. It is far more likely that she performed her maternal role well and that her husband performed his well and that the family, school and community contributed in positive ways and that the child’s own genes facilitated the positive outcome and that other significant outside influences came to bear in a positive way and that the child employed his free will in the right direction. If this is all so, let us remember that when a child has difficulties, it is very unlikely to be the mother’s fault. Point no fingers until you have unraveled that child’s DNA, lived in his house, learned with his teachers, had his friends, went to his places of recreation and worship and so on. Personality development is complex. Your role is to do your best as a parent and send the child out into the world with the confidence that he or she will negotiate the journey in the best way possible.
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