Compliment and Parenting Styles

A week before Saturday, we were at a UWMBDA dance. We were dancing waltz, and afterward, a fellow dancer complimented our dancing, specifically our posture. Ironically, Kyra is pregnant, and she was in her 26th week and was showing quite significantly. Dancing with a pregnant partner creates a number of issues, including safety and, of course, posture. Nonetheless, apparently we looked great dancing the waltz, as other dancers noticed. He even thought we had been taking lessons! No sir, not with the wedding just a month before and the pregnancy in full swing! Perhaps we looked good because waltz is our favorite dance. Or perhaps it is because the extra space required for the baby forced us to have better posture and therefore a better "frame" (dance posture). It would be poor advice, though, to tell dancers that getting pregnant is great for your dance frame!

(Thanks to Eugene for the compliment!)

In other news, Miss Conduct wrote about an interesting complaint she received regarding children playing on airport baggage carousels. Apparently parents are permitting their children to play on and/or around the carousels, which creates a dangerous situation for the children and passengers attempting to claim their bags. In one case, a child was hit on the head with baggage because she was too close to the carousel, and the mother blamed the passenger! I blame the parent for permissive (or neglectful, as she was talking on her cell phone six feet away) parenting.

We intend to be authoritative parents (brief overview), especially in regard to setting rules and sticking to them (although with open dialogue about what the rules mean), instead of being permissive, as these parents appear to be--allowing their children to run around as they please with few rules and little enforcement of those rules. Parents like this, in my experience, tend to side with their child, even though other, responsible, trustworthy adults (e.g., teachers) provide alternative experiences. I have a couple of teacher friends who have had the ridiculous experience of having to fight parents about the child's misbehavior because the parent trusts the child more than the teacher--often a misplaced trust with mischievous children.

One last item in today's news. I saw a short video that I think is just great. It's about how a psychologist's life changes after he hears he has six months to live. As noted by others, it's full of cliches, but still a good story.

Our Time is Up
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vso9iPIpeu8

Comment(s):

Chris said...

Speaking of dance, I just read an entry by Miss Conduct about leading and following. I submitted a comment about my views on leading and following, reprinted here:

"If there's anything I've learned from ballroom dance, it's that good leading is also following. In dance, followers do not need to follow direction given or they may have knowledge that, if the leader knew, would change the lead. For example, a follower may not feel comfortable with a particular step. Or she may see that the couple is about to run into another couple if they perform the move the leader wishes to do. Thus, to lead a good follow, one must also follow the follow! In general, this translates to taking feedback from followers and changing leadership accordingly."

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/missconduct/2008/07/interesting_new.html

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