Reply to What caused the shift in “quality parenting”?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was born in 1975 and while I played outside with friends a lot, my parents absolutely played with me (and my siblings). Board games, dolls (mom), sports (dad).  My dad helped me with math homework. I don’t think my friends parents were appreciably different. [/quote]

You had good parents. I was one of five and mine never played with me or had conversations with me. My dad was physically abusive to us. It blows my mind that people on here are somehow pathologizing involved parents. Obviously there are healthy and unhealthy ways to be involved. That said, spending time enjoying your kids, playing with them, conversing with them are positive things.[/quote]

Involved parents can be abusive, too.  There are bad parents today.  There is more than one way to be a bad parent.  Playing with your kids is one thing, and I doubt there is anyone who thinks that it's good parenting to ignore your kid all the time.  But there has been a hard swing in the other direction, with kids in multiple activities and little unstructured time, and people are (rightly, IMO) saying that's not great, either.  My parents took me to softball and basketball practice, but they didn't stay and watch, and no one else's parents did, either.  They came to most, but not all, of the games, which was true of most other people's parents.  Now, I see parents at every practice and every game, and they are hyper-involved rather than just a cheering section.  That's one example of how things have changed, and it's not clear to me that it's always better.

Kids need a balance of structure and free time -- just one or the other is not great.  They need the opportunity to develop independence, which they can't get if a parent is always there or the activity is always organized.  And a parent can be affectionate and loving without being constantly directly engaged with their kids.

I think that the problem with this thread is that people come in with their own preconceptions, so people are often talking past each other.  [/quote]

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