What Kind of Parent Will I Be?

While working at the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum in Salt Lake City, I was amazed at the way many parents interacted with their kids. I'm going to preface this by saying that I'm not a parent and therefore don't have the experience/authority to say what is or isn't a good parenting style, and of course each family and kid is different. However, while working, I was able to observe many different parent-child relationships and was able to pick out ideas for what I do or don't want to do when I'm a parent (and again, that very well might change once I get there!). 

Two things really stood out to me. The first is how to establish who's the boss. The museum encourages guests to clean up after themselves so that the next people can have a good experience as well (and as an employee, it is EXHAUSTING to clean up the same mess over and over again). Sadly, most of the parents allowed their kids to run around like a hurricane and then moved them to a new area leaving destruction behind. Some parents allowed their kids to create a mess and then cleaned up for them while the kids moved on to something new. While I appreciated the parents' help, I felt that not asking their kids to help take responsibility for the mess, was really telling them that their parents would always be there to clean up; they should just have fun. Along the same lines, I once heard a conversation between two parents and their three year old that went something like this: 

Parents: Let's go get some lunch and then we can come back.Three year old: No! I want to play!Parents: But we're hungry, let's go get lunch.Three year old: I don't want lunch! I want to play!

They stayed and played for at least another hour...Now don't get me wrong, I believe in letting kids play, and I think parents should take into consideration children's wants, but in the end, you make the decision and need to be firm. Especially when it's a situation like this where lunch is a necessary thing (and it would have been a late lunch already at this point) and they were still able to come back and finish exploring afterward. It just makes me feel like this three year old is going to become a teenager who gets into trouble because her parents can't say no and lay down the rules.

The second thing I noticed was that kids are being neglected because their parents are too busy with their phones. SO many parents found somewhere to sit down and spent the whole time on their phone while their kids played. Some kids seemed to be okay with that, but others desperately wanted the attention. One example: a little girl who kept glancing at her mom, hoping she would notice the thing she'd proudly just built, and trying to get her attention until finally yelling "Mom! Stop texting and look at me!" I understand that sometimes parents are busy, but when your kid keeps coming up to you saying "come look at this", or tugging on your arm and you don't even look up, there's a problem. 

Lest you give up on society completely, there were a lot of great parents as well. They helped do crafts, put on ridiculous costumes, sat in too small chairs in the play house, taught them how to go shopping, etc. They complimented them on pictures that looked like a bunch of scribbles. They allowed their kid to do the same task over and over again because the kid found it exciting even though the parent was bored after the first time through. And they kept a smile the whole time. That is the kind of parent I hope to be. I want my kids to believe they can do anything they set their mind to, but also teach them responsibility for their actions. I want them to respect me as an authority figure, but also know that I love them. Hopefully I'll be able to find that balance when I eventually have kids.

Picture that one girl drew at the museum.
Note the project name: Death and World Domination...