Brooks solution

(Sweet William flower)

The boys have taken to playing "bumper cars" where they ram into each other.  They have been "rough housing" more.  Andres said proudly tonight, I'm going to do all my homework by myself.  He's proud of his independence.  Somehow his parents and family have encouraged that.  I was happy to help him when he needed help and he still needs supervision and structure.

Most of the parents stay in their cars, while the kids play in the park, and many kids are unattended.  Most of the time I play tag with the guys to seed the game, get it going, until there are more kids.  Today another mother stood by the building in the park.

The kids swear a lot, and I find that rather distasteful.

David Brooks has an op-ed piece about a father who wrote a letter of disappointment in his children, and Brooks says pointing out people's flaws doesn't really change them.  His suggestion is that you have to entice people to be more independent with the promise of what it brings.

Most people don't like wearing their flaws on the outside, they guard them close.  I would have a hard time writing publicly about my own limitations as a parent, though I am rather self disclosing, and I will admit to some need to improve.

I helped teach parenting classes once, and I came to the conclusion that a parenting class will do little, though it can't hurt.  You parent from who you are.  And development of character is not an easy thing.    I agree with Brooks that the positive approach is often better, but I also sympathise with the letter writing irate father.  I let out my disgruntlement, I think it's important to show frustrations and expectations, but label it as frustration.

Any parent will tell you yelling doesn't work much, but sometimes it happens, and it can be very meaningful.  As a habit it tends to breed yellers, because kids do what you do.  I guess I compare myself, quite bizarrely, to an enlightened being, and see myself falling short.  There's the story of the Buddha going to a group, and the group basically told him to buzz off, they would settle their problem.  You have to be receptive to support, and people have various levels of receptivity.  That's one thing I hope to engender in my sons, receptivity to those who are more advanced.

It's hard to walk the line between holding kids to expectations and being realistic and foster better character.

Tonight Andres had trouble as a second grader, defining "pristine" without copying me.  He threw a little snit and fell asleep, but he woke up, and we keept expecting him to come up with his own sentence.  In the end he copied one of mine, doing a similar one, but he remembered it after struggling, and I guess after a half hour, we have to move on from being stuck.

Andres read non-fiction books today.  I review a few books on goodreads.  I think it's my favorite social site, but it's pretty tame, and not much happens.  I've read a few good book reviews by my cousins.

The boys saw their cousins the other day, who are growing up to be fine young men.  Bart is in the peace corp in Indonesia.  Will is going to Georgetown law school.  Bart gave the boys some cool shirts from Indonesia.  And some coconut sweet from Indonesia, that are good.