Are you used to directing the child, pushing towards a specific goal? Or do you think that he has the right to live and act at his own discretion? Psychologist Alison Gopnik believes there are two main parenting styles. We read for you her book The Gardener and the Carpenter: What Modern Child Development Science Tells Us About Parent-Child Relationships and highlighted the main points.
A group of American psychologists conducted an experiment with preschool children. The children were given a toy assembled from several plastic parts, each with its own function: one part squeaked, another light turned on, a third sounded music, and the last was hidden mirror.
The psychologist called some of the children to the playroom and there she pressed – apparently by accident – on the detail that squeaked. “Ouch!” the psychologist said. She was more confident with other children and demonstrated the toy as a teacher would. “Look, what a wonderful toy! That’s how it works, ”saying this, the psychologist purposely pressed the sound signal. The children were then left alone so that they could play in peace.
Children from the first group played with the toy freely and naturally, as it turned out. Soon, they discovered all the other functions empirically: light, music, mirror. Children who were shown how to use the toy by the “teacher” were much more constrained – they pressed only on the part that squeaked, repeating it over and over again, and did not even try to explore other possibilities of the toy.
Our task is not to shape their minds, but to allow these minds to explore all the possibilities that the world provides.
“This experiment reveals serious flaws in modern parenting,” comments Alison Gopnik. “Parents are trying—and we are all trying—to help our kids do the best they can in life, one after the other, from building the Duplo Tower to getting their Abitur. But those who mold their three-year-olds into Harvard freshmen are at great risk of limiting their opportunities – the very ones that they seem to be trying to develop.
Children thrive in situations like the one created in the first part of the experiment described above, where they are free to explore on their own. Moreover, they learn from our mistakes no worse than at our behest. “Our task is not to shape their minds, but to allow these minds to explore all the possibilities that the world provides,” the psychologist emphasizes.
“Carpentry” approach: children as a project
According to the expert, in modern prosperous societies, an erroneous approach to raising children flourishes. Middle-class families are under enormous pressure to raise their children in such a way that everything goes well for them.
We drag them to the football section and to ballet classes. We anxiously double-check every evening whether they packed school backpacks correctly, and feel guilty if we do not have time to do this. We worry about whether they sleep well, whether they have enough friends. We actively discuss the principles of good and bad parenting. And endlessly questioning our own choices: Are we working too hard? Are we overprotective of children? Are we paying enough attention to them?
But these are all wrong questions, argues Alison Gopnik: we should not replace caring for children with “education.” The problem with “nurture” is that it involves work, not love.
Treating children as a particularly important “project” dooms parents to a feeling of dissatisfaction, because this is stubborn, ungrateful, irregular and, moreover, unpaid work. But at the same time, the expert adds, “it’s also a tremendously strong feeling of love, at least for most of us.”
The psychologist likens “education” to the work of a carpenter who plans, saws and grinds some object in order to achieve some ultimate goal, in this case, to form a certain type of personality. The carpenter is convinced that it is entirely up to him to turn the boards into an elegant chair.
When we cultivate a garden, we by no means consider ourselves “creators” of a head of cabbage or a bush of roses. Rather, we are working to create favorable conditions for their maturation.
The gardener knows that his plans are likely to be violated. The poppy will grow bright scarlet instead of pale pink, the tomatoes in the greenhouse will turn black, and the aphids will not be able to be removed. The goal of gardener parents is to provide a safe space for children to be themselves, not to mold them into a design pattern.
“Gardeners” create space for free growth
“The carpenter parenting model has failed miserably,” says Alison Gopnik. In the US and UK, the education system is test-driven, and illiteracy rates, especially among children from low-income families, remain high.
Moreover, children who do not meet the requirements of the school are treated as if they were defective or sick. Instead of training them for high scores, the psychologist suggests paying more attention to them. Especially to children from poor families, and especially in the first years of their lives.
From the point of view of evolution, it is more profitable for humanity to raise children with a wide range of qualities. Compared to other species, human beings remain immature longer, but they have larger brains and a greater ability to learn. Because young children need to be looked after for so long, in the past they have always been taken care of by different members of the community in turn.
The benefits of this approach have been backed up by numerous studies showing that children learn best by observing a wide variety of people. First, we acquire skills and abilities by playing, and only then by learning. That is why the modern school system is so harmful, where the game is pushed aside, and children are taught science not in practice, but according to textbooks and test assignments.
“Our goal is not to shape the minds of our children,” emphasizes Alison Gopnik, “but to enable them to explore all the possibilities that the world provides.”
About the Expert: Alison Gopnik is Professor of Psychology and Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a recognized scholar in child psychology and child development, and the author of over 100 articles and several books.