I would agree that parenting is for the most part intuitive. I also think it is instinctual--if you were parented well, you are much more likely to be a good parent yourself.
What I was specifically talking about was your emphatic insistence that Michael Reagan was treated appropriately when he had not even his own space at home. This is clearly damaging to a child, and even worse for an adopted child. You seemed unable to put yourself in his place, or empathize with how an already damaged child would feel in that situation.
You seem like a good and concerned parent, as does your wife. Your comment, however, that an exceptional child would cope well at boarding school (I am paraphrasing here) caused me to wonder if you understood that being exceptional intellectually does not alter the emotional needs of a child at a particular age--that emotional development is not precocious, and that gifted children need the same things from their parents and families as average children do at any particular time.
There are very clearly huge mistakes in parenting that can be avoided by taking some basic psychology and child development courses in college. How the mind and the psyche develop in a child are much less abstract than simply absorbing a psychology text. I have a minor in child development, so I took more of them than most people would need to, but a basic understanding of how children develop, what is appropriate at each age, and what kinds of situations will usually make children insecure or unhappy, how to respond appropriately to an infant's needs, and basic parenting styles that produce happy, confident children are all things that are very appropriate to study, and to keep in mind when you have children.
Your dismissal of these subjects as psychobabble seemed condescending to me. These subjects are academic in nature, and are taught at the best universities and colleges. The world of feelings in a child is very important. |
