To be wary of 'baby led' or 'child led' as concepts?

[Chil1234]

It's been gathering ground, I've noticed The fashion to preface new trendy parenting practices with the words 'child led' or 'baby led'. Does it make anyone else feel uncomfortable?

If we're delegating leadership to our children rather than the adults setting the agenda what does that say about modern parenting? And should we be surprised if in future, all of these kids grow up expecting mum and dad to meekly trot along behind, obeying their every whim?

certainly all the talk in primary education puts the 'child at the centre', encouraging them to develop their own passions and lead their own education. i think that's a positive step. but then some people like the victorian thing, i suppose, and there will always be routine queens. each to their own...

btw why didn't you answer my post on the blw thread, instead coming over here and starting this? strange.

If you read up about it, rather than just gleaning the odd bits of info from a forum, you'll find that child-led concepts are not really anything to do with being child-centred

I agree the name needs an overhaul because its suggests that the mother is running around after a spoiled brat, but that is not even close.

It's a reaction to the dire history in the twentieth century of doctors and gurus telling mothers how they should be raising their children i.e you should give 4 hourly feeds, put them down at X time, give them a nap at 2, put them down the bottom of the garden in a pram to cry for a couple of hours etc etc.
Traces of this authoritarian parenting still remain in the UK and America so "baby led" is just a backlash against that. THe basic principle is "listen to your instincts", and "watch your baby to see if it's ready for the next developmental step, don't check in a manual or guide". Doing this I ended up exclusively breastfeeding for far longer than the books told me I should, and my baby was very bonny ( code for fat) . Now he's crawling he's losing the puppy fat. Baby led child-rearing makes life a lot easier. It has NOTHING to do with boundaries. Of course you set boundaries according to your principles.

sorry carmen, I basically just wrote what you did!

What you described in your second paragraph Chil is the doormat parent. not a child led one. read the whole article

This thread wasn't about BLW specifically although that was one of the trendy phrases that made me think of the topic. I don't support Victorian-style authoritarian parenting styles either, for what it's worth. However, I'm struck that many parents get very stressed working around meeting their offspring-led requirements in full rather than .... and this is going to shock some people..... making the child fit around them.

I also know a man that went to a progressive private school back in the seventies that was all about children 'learning when they are ready'... similar sort of principle. He had a very poor experience because the children largely messed around (now there's a surprise) and decided they were never 'ready to learn'.

Happy mediums always preferable to polarisation I think... but parents/adults actively taking the lead, surely?

yy

Do parents really do that though?

If you have children, you're going to need to make some lifestyle changes. You're going to have to feed your baby when it cries and change it when it's dirty (or hire someone to do it), so to an extent, every parent is baby-led. We're just really arguing over terms and specific parenting styles.

As I say, I strongly identify with child-led philosophies and I find them very unstressful. My children have become very independent because I've allowed them to find their own way. They get their breakfast. DD1 often teaches DD2 and they both learn something (we HE). We generally negotiate things as a family and we don't have battles. I do have time to myself (sometimes!) and my own interests.

Perhaps I'd use a phrase more around holistic parenting or family-centred parenting because we try to consider everyone when we make a decision and children are involved in most major choices.

I do think it would be unfair and harmful to force a decision on my children - particularly regarding something as big as schooling. They have to spend several hours a day there.

Personally I don't see why breastfeeding on demand or letting the baby manage its own weaning (with food selected by the parent) has anything to do with whether you are going to be able to establish boundaries with an older child or not.

The whole bind-a-rod-for-your-own-back idea is based on the assumption that you treat a baby the same way as a teenager and that a parent who has once listened to signals from a small child has rendered herself incapable of ever imposing her own will again. In my experience this is usually not the case. The parents who were the most confident about responding to the signals from their newborns were also the most confident about insisting on decent behaviour from their 13yos.

My own parents were a case in point.They cuddled me when I cried as a baby because they loved me and they made sure I ate a decent diet and greeted my elders politely when I was of school age- because they loved me. It was all part and parcel of the same thing. And I took it for granted that I would obey them and accept their rules precisely because I knew they never told me off out of spitefulness or just to test their own authority- there was always a good reason.

I completely agree.

I'm sure theres nothing wrong with BLW or feeding purees, I just think that it makes sod all difference which one you go for in the end. No need to come up with a concept for it, and I cringe if I ever have to say 'baby led weaning' out loud

Also a child that is fed purees still gets a choice wether it eats them or not and can develop preferences. No good parent force feeds their child.

Well obviously no-one expects a child to lea the parent in every area. But FFS it's the childs body - I don't think it;s unreasonable for him/her to decide when he/she wants to eat solids or use a potty.

cory - "And I took it for granted that I would obey them and accept their rules precisely because I knew they never told me off out of spitefulness or just to test their own authority- there was always a good reason"

yy

The way I was brought up and the way I am trying to bring up my DC.

I agree that 'child-led' and especially 'child-centred' are ridiculous terms, I can't think of better ones, but for me they would describe parenting based on co-operation, democracy, interdependance rather than authority.

Yes, in the first year or two this will look very child centred, because babies have needs not wants and no concept of 'later' but as they get older you can plan together to meet everyone in the family's needs and some of everyones' wants.

I like it, it suits us and neither DD appears to have turned into a monster child yet. If it doesn't suit you, also fine, different personalities suit different ways of doing things.

Carmen, your philosophy is exactly the same as mine, I guess I've just never associated it with the term baby/child-led. I only have 1 toddler DS so far so its hard to see if the way I'm doing things will result in a happier family (not just child) in the long run but hearing your experience does reassure me.

Even at this age, my DS is noticeably more patient and even-tempered than friends' children of the same age. I'm always being told I'm lucky to have such an easy/chilled-out child but tbh it wasn't quite so easy when he was a terrible sleeper for the fourteen months or so and I was still bfeeding in the early hours and wouldn't let him 'cry it out' - when all my friends were doing just that with their babies and were getting tons more sleep!

And I also don't believe this approach precludes having boundaries and sticking to them. I'm very firm about the ones I see as important, e.g. Holding my hand when walking near roads, not pulling the cat around, wearing appropriate shoes even - rather than giving in to a tantrum about wearing sandals in the rain (which seems to be really common around here lately!)

Well, the logic concludes that one with greater knowledge, experience and plain old intelligence should take the lead in any situation.
In Rollmops' case, the Mummy and Daddy Rollmops decided and continue to do so, what mini Rollmops' twins should eat, play with, read etc. I have no doubt, naturally, that Rollmops Jr.x2 will be geniuses/genii and achieve world peace, find cure for cancers and develop the Grand Unified Theory, however, in the meantime, it's wot Mummy sez.

that logic is what had babies bound up on boards and hanging from a peg on the wall for the greater part of the seventeenth century, but still...

No dear, that was ignorance, nowt do with logic. The last I checked we're sitting pretty in 21st century but I understand that under some rocks, time does stand still

lol, it was cutting-edge science actually. and don't wear out the s, eh?

Tempting, however, can't be bothered.

Bother, that was DT1 who posted....
Cutting edge science as in BLW? etc. etc. ad nauseam

fwiw I do not believe that listening to your children is necessarily going to stop all battles

I have a fairly laidback reasonable approach to parenting and dd is still a bit of a drama queen, not I think because of my parenting, but because of her innate temperament

my mother is exactly the same, brought up by very reasonable and loving parents and married to a gentle loving man, but she is still craves a few battles- even if they sometimes have to be one man battles

this is not a sign of failed parenting in either myself or my grandparents: just the price we have to pay for the great qualities that come with that temperament: creativity, drive, passion

I am more laidback than either of them (my dad's genes no doubt), but I also am considerably less fun- people like dd and my Mum are needed in this world if it is not to end up a dreary morass of reasonableness

I don't parent the way I do because I need my dcs to develop certain personalities: I parent this way because it seems right to me

and they don't have to turn out a certain way just to prop me up

for the record, I have had to force many things on my dcs, not least because of their medical needs, but also because of the needs of people around them

but then my work sometimes forces things on me, the needs of dcs force things on me that I do feel resentful of from time to time: again, that's not a sign of failure

you understand that the people who put the babies up on boards/removed their milk teeth and caused them to die of infection/fed them gin etc were the ones with greater knowledge, experience and plain old intelligence, don't you? there's a great book on child-rearing through the ages, can't remember the name, it's on my shelf, will get it in a minute. bottom line is, most people have a very hard time accepting that their approach might be wrong, and like to slag off other people's approach because it makes them feel better. plus ca change.

blw isn't cutting edge science, rollmops, for goodness sakes. it's just not pureeing stuff. lol.