Parenting sons is not a one-size-fits-all job. Brandy Pettigrew explains her journey of raising two boys.
My husband and I have two boys. After our first went off to college, we began a lot of soul searching about the kind of parents we’ve been, and the kind of parents we’re becoming. What we really wanted to know was: how do we know that we’ve done the right thing, or the wrong thing, in raising these boys? When they were young, we didn’t really feel that we had time for this kind of reflection because we were in the middle of it all. We were responding to situations as they arose. We were helping them with school work, talking to them about making good choices, teaching them to cook and clean up after themselves, supporting them in their chosen sports, and all of those little day to day things that every parent does to care for their child. What we’ve found through the last year of searching is simply this: Raising sons is like baking a batch of cookies.
Each cookie can be made out of the same batch of dough, they can be baked in the same oven, but each cookie is still going to be individual and unique in some way. So, if you try to use a cookie cutter to make them more alike, you’re going to find more differences in each cookie. When you try to mold that dough to be exactly the same as each other cookie, you’re creating resistance. That cookie will find a way to break the mold.
I’ve read a lot of articles about the popular theories about raising a young man in today’s world. There’s always a long list of specific do’s and don’ts. What I’ve found is each item would only have applied to one or the other of our boys. There was not one tried and true rule that said you must do this to raise your son that would apply to both. Where our oldest was more outgoing and social, our younger son is quiet and reserved. Our oldest wants to be on every sports team, our youngest prefers one team. Our oldest needed to be pushed to study, organize, and set goals. Our youngest is very organized, sets goals for himself, and studies ahead of our expectations. Each of these boys are wonderful. We’re very proud of them. We know they have the potential to be great men someday. However, if we applied our parenting styles to these two entirely different personality types, in exactly the same way, we would cause irreparable harm to one or both of them.
Our oldest was a multi-sport player. We could have insisted that our younger son join just as many sports. Since our youngest son works well on his school work on his own, we could have allowed our oldest to do his own school work unchecked. How well do you think these two boys would have fared with this system? I can say for certain, with this scenario, that both boys would be failing in their school work.
This principle is the same for establishing rewards for good behavior for these two boys. Our older son was always motivated best by rewards of money to go out with friends, an overnight stay with a buddy, or even tickets to our local movie theatre. Our youngest son was more motivated by a new book, extra quiet time at home, or a special dinner (his choice). If we’d have given either one, the rewards that we gave the other, the reward would not have worked. The reward needs to fit the child.
The same goes also for punishments. I know, no one ever wants to talk about disciplining children. Everything should be able to be accomplished without ever raising your voice or disciplining in any way, right? (I’m shaking my head at the very thought) Every child not only needs but wants discipline and boundaries. However, the punishments and boundaries shouldn’t just fit “the crime”, they should also fit the child. If you sent my youngest son, at any point in his sixteen years, to his room as a discipline he’d have happily skipped along to read a book. You could even take the books, video games, paper, etc away. None of that would make a difference. He could withstand hours of “isolation” therapy happily thinking to himself or staring off into space. Our oldest son on the other hand would crack at twenty minutes of similar punishment. To him, being part of the action, any action, was necessary. When both boys were around the 6-9 year old range, raising your voice is usually and effective means of getting a young boy to stop doing something or tell them they’ve misbehaved. With our oldest you needed to raise your voice when he misbehaved to get him to hear you out, or he would tune you out. Our youngest was the complete opposite, if you raised your voice, he would dissolve in tears and wouldn’t hear a word you said because he was crying so hard.
How do I know that what I’m telling you here is the truth? It’s very simple really. At age fourteen I thought that I knew better than my husband how our oldest should be parented. So, he let me take over and do it my way for a little while. Disastrous! When our youngest was about thirteen my husband thought that he knew better than I did how our youngest should be parented. Completely ineffectual. While, for the most part, we parent together, there are some areas where one or the other of us has shown to be stronger and more knowledgeable. It just so happens that this also coincides with each boy’s personality. I understand our youngest better, so my parenting style works. He understands our eldest better, and his parenting style worked better. So as with any good team we work together normally, but sometimes there has to be a leader.
I believe we will still always question whether we did enough for our boys, or did too much for our boys. However, I think when our youngest heads off to college we won’t be asking if we should have parented him like we parented his older brother. We have finally put that question to rest. We’ll be saying that we baked two separate and individual cookies that are perfect in their uniqueness.
Photo:Flickr\Dinner Series
Thank you Shelly! I’m glad you enjoyed the article. Felicia, I hope my article helped to give you a new way to look at parenting all of your kids. When we step back from the situation and see each child as an individual, not just our children (as a whole), we will make better decisions for their best interest.
Brandy, you are 120% correct!!! Very smart girl!!!
I love this I never looked at parenting like this. I have 4 girls and 1 boy he has two that are older and 2 that are younger. All of them have their styles and we have to do jist about everything seperately for each one. Although my son is just 10 I wonder if we ate doing everything right not just for him but for all of them. It is nice to hear that someone else has questioned the same thing. Thanks for the blog it helps.