Hellobee

Heather Shumaker’s book It’s OK Not to Share…and Other Renegade Rules for Raising Competent and Compassionate Kids (Tarcher, 2012) aims to challenge the most commonly held parenting conventions such as encouraging children to share and play nicely with each other; discouraging fighting; structured activity; praise, apologizing and conflict resolution, among others. What makes the book immediately fantastic is Shumaker’s ability to identify everyday parenting behaviors that we all practice and put them into a new perspective, giving the reader a lot of “oh, I never thought of it that way” moments along the way.

Shumaker is not a psychologist nor a child/parenting expert. She’s a journalist who grew up with a unique perspective on child rearing, having attended the School for Young Children in Ohio. The school’s approach to teaching is to give kids the freedom to move, play and explore as they see fit, and encourage kids to figure out how resolve conflict between themselves, rather than with adult guidance and intervention. Shumaker calls the school’s methodology, and the subsequent parenting philosophy she outlines in the book, “renegade parenting” and the book goes on to outline over 20 “renegade rules” for parenting, all following one central “renegade golden rule” – it’s OK if it’s not hurting people or property.

Shumaker begins with free play and the downside of “trying to make children ready for the next stage of life before natural development allows them to be ready” (11). Free play is a hotly debated topic these days, especially among overachiever parents like Mr. Carrot and me. As children of immigrants who constantly pushed on our academic achievement, we tend to fall prey to the same type of thinking ourselves, all while trying to remember that Baby C only gets to be a kid for so long and it’s our job to protect her ability to play and explore in her way. Mrs. Cowgirl wrote an amazing series of posts (here and here) about the potential pitfalls of too-early academics, and Shumaker comes back to the idea of free play and “let kids be kids” repeatedly throughout the book. It’s her guiding philosophy and is the foundation for her “Children’s Renegade Rights.”

Shumaker structures the book so that it discusses a topic but also provides tools for action. At the end of every chapter, she makes recommendations on how to further encourage and develop that particular topic area and offers strategies for when real life gets in the way. In the case of the free play chapter, she discusses how to give kids the freedom to play openly – i.e., open-ended toys, areas where they can be messy and unrestricted, etc., and then offers tips on how to set limits in cases where free play has to be restricted (such as grocery stores or sidewalks where vehicles may pose danger). She also includes words/phrases to try to avoid to make sure that kids understand the circumstances around them and that the limits are not set negatively and broadly but rather situationally.

The bulk of the book is spent on potential conflict situations in a child’s development – both social and individual scenarios that lead to conflict, be it personal/internal for the child or with another child or adult. Shumaker argues throughout that a parent’s responsibility is not to intervene to help a child manage conflict, but rather help the child gain an understanding the situation and the possible ways to resolve it. Instead of banning bullying, for example, Shumaker says adults should be teaching kids how to recognize bad behavior, how to address it, how to stand up for themselves and others and, most importantly, allow kids to be in conflict situations that allow them to practice their conflict resolution skills. She recommends observing and naming conflict behaviors (I hear Sarah screaming and saying Stop), asking questions (Sarah, did you like it when Bobby threw the ball at you?) and addressing all the participants in the conflict to help them come together, think through their roles, their feelings on the situation, and help them think through solutions jointly. She works through a variety of scenarios – i.e., what to do if a conflict occurs but you didn’t witness it – to help parents develop proactive and positive responses.

Following in step with Children’s Renegade Rights, Shumaker also focuses heavily on feelings vs actions, and the idea that “all feelings are OK; all behavior isn’t.” (61) Her premise is that children’s feelings should be acknowledged, accepted and validated, to encourage them to be honest about how they are feeling, regardless of the situation. She notes that we are often too quick to dismiss negative feelings (something I find myself doing a lot with Baby C when she’s anything other than cheerful with “Oh, that’s OK, you’re OK.”) What I view as shifting to a positive, Shumaker says actually tells the child that their negative feeling (sad, mad, hurt, etc.) is bad and thus she should aim to hide it or “shake it off.” Acknowledging kids’ feelings (which admittedly does feel a bit awkward in action – “We have to leave the playground and you’re mad!”) allows them to identify and differentiate them (especially for younger toddlers still learning their emotional responses), tells them that every emotion is OK to feel, and allows the kid and parent to find an outlet for that feeling that’s safe for everyone. This idea is demonstrated in her chapter on physical responses (Let Kids Hit and Kick), arguing that kids need physical outlets for their emotions and energy and that even violent play is OK as long as everyone participating feels safe and nothing is being damaged (back to the Renegade Golden Rule – it’s OK as long as it’s not hurting people or property), and various recommendations for other emotional outlets (writing, drawing, verbalizing, etc.) are demonstrated throughout the book.

My favorite chapters were ones that really challenged conventions that most of us hold dear – sharing and apologizing. Shumaker devotes two chapters to sharing and immediately challenges our natural tendency to say “you’ve been playing with that toy for a while, share it with the boy who wants it” with a perfect example:

You’re reading a magazine when suddenly, someone takes it from you and starts reading the feature story. “I want it,” he says. “You’ve had it a long time.” Do you get mad? (114)

This example was my “a-ha” moment and what sold me on this book immediately. There are many such examples throughout the book but this one really hit home for me because I hear myself forcing Baby C to share all the time, encouraging her to let go of a toy that someone else wants in the spirit of social graces and thinking that I’m teaching her niceness. Instead, Shumaker says, what I’m really teaching her is that her feelings aren’t important (if she’s not letting go of the toy, she’s not done with the toy yet) and that the other kid, who may be asking nicely or not so nicely for said toy, gets to have his way without condition. Shumaker argues that it is our responsibility as parents to “protect the child’s right to play” (117) and teach them the idea of “I’m not done yet” and verbalizing so, as well as passing the toy on to the child who wanted it by recognizing “I’m all done.” I admit, it can be hard to do this in social situations – other parents are looking at you and how you’ll respond, you wonder if you’ll come off as an impolite yourself if you don’t push your kid to share – but the couple of times that I’ve tried it since reading this book, it really worked out fine. Baby C is not yet 2, so understanding “I’m not done” and verbalizing so is still a foreign concept, but I find that if I protect her right to hold on to a toy, she usually quickly gives it up anyway and it’s a non issue.

The other “a-ha” moment for me was Shumaker challenging the notion of forcing kids to say “I’m sorry.” I don’t do this much because thankfully, we haven’t had to yet and I know Baby C has a minimal grasp of the idea so we try to focus on alternative actions (gentle hands vs hitting, etc), but saying sorry is reflexive for me personally and I don’t want to raise a child that apologizes on autopilot. Shumaker notes that “saying sorry is a cop-out; take action instead to set things right.” (297) She argues that “I’m sorry” is usually not sincere because kids don’t understand what they did wrong and what they are apologizing for, nor are they being taught to fix anything. Pointing out their actions (“you swung your arm and hit Mommy’s face”), the reaction (“Mommy’s face hurts now”) and a subsequent reparation (“can you help Mommy get an ice pack to make her face feel better?”) is a better course of action. Over time, kids will develop a moral compass that makes “sorry” more meaningful, but in early childhood, the action-reaction sequence is much more important to learn.

Shumaker tackles a plethora of other topics in the book – sensitive conversations like sex, death and gender stereotypes; friendships (and permission to not be forced into friendship or “playing nice”), and generic vs specific praise. Her writing is pithy, flows easily and is full of scenarios and examples from her own life. As with any parenting book, it’s impossible (nor necessary) to follow all advice to the letter, but unlike other books, Shumaker acknowledges this and tackles issues like social conventions and what to do when your parenting style may not jibe with those around you. She’s proactive in offering advice, and providing tips and tools, like the best words to use in each situation, to help crystallize her ideas in practice. I highly recommend this book, especially to parents of toddlers just starting to navigate social graces and those contending with early childhood. I highlighted a lot of this book for future reference and will be coming back to it regularly as Baby C gets older.