Monday, April 19, 2010

kids are more aware than you might think . . .

so today . . . at dinner i was telling rollie and diandra about a blog i had read that made me laugh. it was written by a young woman who was raised in a household with very involved parents. very involved. and it made me laugh, because i could see a little bit of myself in her parents . . .

when diandra was growing up, we pretty much had to approve anything she was going to see or do or have. she missed more than one birthday party because of the planned activities. i wouldn't let her have barbies, or even play with them, until she was in the first grade. and even then i thought it was too early, but there were circumstances . . . and clothes shopping was no picnic either, because my ten year old was not going to dress like she was 16!

today at school one of my kindergarteners was talking about the movie 2012. she saw it over the weekend. 2012! it is about the end of the world, and california falls into the ocean! and in case you don't know, we live in california!! i'm too scared to go see it, but there i was, listening to a six year old tell me all about it.

i think sometimes parents are not aware of how much their small children are soaking up from the things they are exposed to. i think they think their children are too young to understand, and so what they see or hear doesn't matter. but it does. i see this most often when i hear my kids absentmindedly singing to themselves--some of they lyrics they sing are shocking!

one day i heard a little boy singing, "i wear sneakers, i wear tshirts . . . " over and over and over again. that was the only line he sang, but he sang it all morning. when it finally sank into my brain, i realized that it sounded like the warped lyrics of a taylor swift song. her lyrics are not obscene or objectionable, but after listening to her music (which i admit i like,) i think her target audience is probably young women--which this little boy obviously was not. so i said to him, "where did you learn that song?" and he replied, "in my dad's car." his dad's car?!?! i know his dad, and this does not seem like it would be his music of choice. but clearly this little boy had heard it often enough to get the melody right, and the lyrics were close enough that i recognized it. so now i picture him and his dad boppin' out to taylor swift songs on the way to school. and i admit it--i laugh. it is a pretty funny picture . . .

diandra says that she is glad we were careful about what was allowed into her developing brain. yeah, she says that NOW. i am pretty sure she didn't always appreciate it when she was growing up. but it warms my heart, as her mom, to hear her tell her teens that they need to be careful what movies they watch or what music they listen to, because all the stuff going into their heads has an effect on who they are and how they think about things. and even though her standards are a bit broader than the ones imposed on her when she was 15, she has been known to get up and walk out of a movie or refuse to watch a dvd if she thought the content was not going to be good.

i like that. it makes me proud that i was a somewhat restrictive parent. kids are sponges, and as the adults in their lives, we need to pay attention to what we are allowing them to soak up . . .

. . . even if it means saying no.

3 comments:

Light said...

It is amazing how much the kids soak up...and I hope I can be just as overprotective as you sometimes. I know I know...it'll drive my kid nuts, but somehow I don't care. I want my future child hurt by the world.

PS-I thought Diandra was younger than what you have....so can I ask how old is she? (if you don't want to post her age...is she an adult??)

Diandra Ann said...

Hi "Light"... yep I'm an adult. I'll be 25 in June :) When she is talking about "my teens" its because I work at a church as a youth pastor... they arent my children :)

And yes mom, I hated it at times growing up, but at the same times sometimes I was secretly glad my "mom said no (insert eye roll here)" because then I didn't have to be the one to say no.

You were (and are) a great mom :) Love you!

mom said...

I have had little (kinders throught second) kids approach me on the school playground, little kids whose faces are familiar and I know their first names but the playground is the only place they have contact with me, and start telling me about the most awful blood and guts movie out there that they saw the night before. I try to listen to them tell me about what they saw as I feel they NEED assurance from someone that all is okay. It is beyond my comprehension the media that parents expose their kids to and that movie theaters will allow adults in with children. Such a shame. Buy more frog books!!!!