IComLeavWe: Day 6

It is the second to last day of IComLeavWe on speed. As I make my way through over 100 blogs this week, reconnecting and leaving comments, I hope to feature a couple of posts each day and also list the posts that I commented on.

Featured post - Do you parent differently in public?

How much do you care about what other people think of your parenting? Of your children's behaviour? Sarah from Raising Three Thinkers wrote about how this impacts her parenting in Mind Over Punishment:

Over the last year or so, I've noticed that everything I've learned and put into practice, in terms of EI parenting at home, goes immediately out the window when we are in public. It's like my brain just switches off and I default back to bribes (rewards) and punishments to get my kids to behave. Even if I tell myself beforehand to be more conscious of this tendency, I do it anyway. It's frustrating and sets back all of the work I've done earlier that day. Why would I do that?

I find in most circles, I am staunchly proud of my parenting approach and practices and I have been known to flaunt my crunch. But there are other spaces where I would rather just be considered normal, for my sake and for my children's sake. Ideally, I'd like for my choices to become the mainstream, but they are not and there is such societal pressure to be like others that even those of us with a confidence may find ourselves sometimes in situations where we revert back to the child who is afraid of being shunned for being different.

Read more about why we might parent differently in public and why we worry so much about what others think.

Posts I commented on

1. LouLou's Views: Changes


2. A Piece of My Mind: Awareness


3. Playground Confidential: 'Tis the Season to Give Crap


4. Post Cards from the East End: Two Years, Three Months, and Two Weeks


5. Psychobabbling: Sesame Street - Bastion of the Patriarchy?


6. Raising my Boychick: The M-word: In which I indulge in angst, whining and more angst


7. Raising Three Thinkers: Mind over punishment


8. Really Bad Parenting Advice: Tattoo Your Kids with Reckless Abandon


9. Se7en: A Rollicking Rocket in Se7en Steps…


10. Single Mom in the City: Parental Query


11. Snap Shot of Our Life: What We've Been Up To


12. Sorta Crunchy: Baby Week: Maternal Instinct or Conventional Wisdom - Which to Trust?


13. Strocel: No time to be sick


14. The Starr Family Blog: Baby Boy Ultrasound


15. This is Worthwhile: When 100% might be too much


16. Tiny Grass: Up all night...again


17. The Unnecesarean: Quote of the day: Fads and fancies spur obstetric progress

Comments

[Eleni - Surfing Mom SC]

I appreciate that you are featuring posts as well as leaving a list of posts that you commented on. I am relatively new to the blog world and this is a wonderful way for me to quickly see some interesting blogs, writers and topics. There is so much out there it is hard to weed through it all.
Thanks

[Jackie]

I try and parent in public the same as at home. it doesn't make sense to me to be inconcistant. With that being said- I do overly award when he's been good while we're out. A whole day in the city wo a meltdown? He gets a balloon from the dollar store.

[kittenpie]

I don't know, I think a lot of what you talk about, even in your "flaunt your crunch" post, ARE mainstream by now. I am not a crunchy type, but never considered formula, happily coslept for about 6 months with each kid, ride public transit, and so on. If anything, my parenting only changes a bit in public in that I tend to be stricter about what is okay or not than some other parents around us and I insist on following through, so I find I sometimes pull her aside to have those talks instead.