Self-regulation and sin - Theology of Unschooling Part 3
When I was exploring unschooling, the idea of self-regulation was big. Is it still a big concept in unschooling circles? I don't know, but it was then, at least. So people didn't have bedtimes for their kids or they wouldn't restrict sugary items or they didn't have any restrictions on video game playing, etc. And parents would brag, basically, about how their kids stayed up all night playing video games and slept all day and that this didn't bother them because they believed the child would at some point regulate themselves. It was sort of their badge of being really radical unschoolers. This just struck as so weird. These were some of things I'd read about on unschooling boards. I used to frequent the VegSource Unschooling message board (any old timers remember that?) and I think other places, but anyway, I will just go through and tackle some of the areas where self-regulation was touted and why I just wasn't convinced, namely bedtimes and video games, which were the two that troubled us the most.
I think I sort of compromised on this one, simply for practical reasons. You can't force a kid to fall asleep! In a way, sleep is always self-regulated. So we had bedtimes but once in your bed, if a child chose to read or listen to an audio book or do suduko puzzles or sit in bed coloring or whatever, that was fine. They did have to stay in their beds pretty much. And while I wasn't a tyrant about getting into bed exactly at the same time every night, we did have a general routine. My husband often worked late. We are on the east coast and he had a major client on the west coast. So he often worked until 8 p.m. By the time he'd driven home it was 8:30 or 8:45. But he absolutely adored reading to the kids. So he'd read to them for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and then they'd go off to bed. This was when he was actually home. He traveled a lot for work as well. So I guess we had latish bedtimes anyway, but after reading and prayers, it was off to your bedroom where you had to stay in bed and do quiet things until you fell asleep.
When he was out of town, I'll admit that the kids got to bed earlier simply because I always struggled against burn out by the end of the day. So bedtimes made me more pleasant. I needed a break by 9 p.m. or so, for sure!
I did not like the kids to play video games or watch TV after dinner. Sometimes they would if they had a friend over or, if, I don't know, somehow things were different, perhaps a new baby or some family members being sick or something like that. But mostly I didn't like TV after dinner. Now sometimes when they got older they would watch TV with my husband, if there was a particular thing my husband wanted to watch. I remember that I gave my husband a DVD set of that old TV show Green Acres, with Eddie Albert and Zsa Zsa Gabor. We had both thought it was really funny growing up. His mom was dying of cancer that summer and he was spending a lot of time with her. When he got home he was emotionally exhausted. He was very close to his mom. So we would sit as a family and watch Green Acres and laugh and laugh - deep, healing belly laughs. It was truly therapeutic for my husband.
But anyway, the TV watching was an exception rather than the rule. I used the TV (mostly educational TV) in the afternoon as a break time for me, if we didn't have anything else scheduled.
So anyway, I never thought the idea of letting your kid play video games into the night was a wholesome one. There were, to me, so many dangers there! For one thing my kids would be really grumpy if they didn't get their routine sleep. We hardly did sleepovers! If a kid slept over at a friends house I usually had to deal with the unpleasant aftermath for a couple of days. It wasn't worth it to me! I wanted my kids to develop wholesome habits that promoted virtuous living. That might sound Polly Ann-ish, but it's true. A lot of radical unschoolers were much more interested in promoting autonomy but as a Catholic, virtue seemed a whole more important! Of course you need the autonomy to choose virtue. But I didn't think that staying up late, messing up your sleep patterns to play video games was healthy. To me it deliberately made it harder for the kid to learn to control his emotions and stay on an even keel.
And I didn't want everyone sleeping in all the time because inevitably we'd have some kind of an early morning appointment somewhere and then how do you get the kid up who has been up most of the night? It becomes painful and throws a monkey wrench into family living. When you are a family, especially with many young children, it's like being on a team. Everyone needs to cooperate to get things done, like meals, and getting to appointments, etc. If everyone is off doing their own thing, disregarding what else is going on in the family's universe, it makes for a lot of unnecessary conflict. You all have to learn to pull together and you can't learn that if everyone is off being self-indulgent.
Later on, when my youngest son was struggling with depression, we found out that he has SAD. And one of the first things his psychiatrist said was getting regular sleep where he wakes at the same time each morning and gets out into morning sunshine, was important for him. The doctor said that many teens suffer from mild depression and that if they just changed this one thing, it usually helps them a lot. Teens are growing incredibly. They are in the middle of a developmental boom. They need more sleep, not less. Messing up your circadian rhythms is a major factor in depression. And the fact is if you sleep in, you won't get that morning sunshine which is really important for serotonin production! I think our natural body clock, our circadian rhythms, need to be respected. We live in an artificial world, detached and alienated and unable to even recognize what our bodies crave for health.
The other thing is I don't think kids should up with late with unlimited access to things on line. There is a lot of horrible stuff out there that kids can stumble across. These things can do permanent damage!
So to protect kids, to respect natural bodily rhythms and for family peace, I think it is the parent's prerogative to regulate these elements of life. We know that too much screen time affects a child's brain development. We know, to be healthy, kids need to get off the couch and move. A lot! We know this stuff is addicting! As a Catholic, I believe we live in a fallen world. Part of that fallen nature is to be trapped into addiction. As Bishop Barron has often said, sin is addiction. The addict always thinks that getting his fix of whatever he is addicted to is a good thing! Just one more drink and things will be better, the addict tells himself. Just one more slice of cake! Just one more porn video, just one more video game and I'll be happy! And then I can function! But it is just the opposite. The sinner always thinks the sin he is being tempted to do is somehow a 'good.' But this is deceptive. In the very short term, it might temporarily assuage certain impulses or longing, but in the long term it is very destructive. It warps the sinners outlook, it make him more and more a prisoner of his lusts and lack of self-control. Sin is real. Addiction is real. Brain and physical development are real needs for a growing child They need to happen in the most optimum context a parent can provide.
But I don't think a parent needs to micromanage or rule arbitrarily over the child when it comes to regulating these things. The best advice I ever got was to simply provide attractive alternatives to whatever the child craves, so that they learn to make good choices. You can model moderation. If you provide a smorgasbord of good healthy food to fill up on and then pull out the cookies so everyone can have one or two - that's moderation. If you say, for example: Okay,you can play video games until 4 p.m. but then we are going for a walk or we are going to work on such and such project or what have you, then the child knows video games are just one element in an interesting life. If you make the family routine balanced and wholesome, the child gets used to that and things don't become addicting and you don't have to go to the extreme of going through this supposedly 'self-regulating' phase that may or may not prove to be true.
I do think some kids can self-regulate about some things all on their own. I remember when the issue of finding our shoes before we had to get in the car became a really annoying thing. The kids would take their shoes off anywhere and then we'd never be able to find them to get out the door. I was trying to make them put them in the same place every day but it seemed an uphill battle and at some point I gave up. But then one of my kids, my oldest son who'd been officially labeled ADHD started always putting his shoes at the same place in his room each night. No one else did this (including myself!) but he did. In this one tiny area, he taught himself, to be orderly. We all admired him immensely for this! LOL.
One of my mottoes for raising kids is 'a light touch is better than a heavy hand.' Instead of being strict and rigid, use your creative energy to create wholesome routines that gives kids well-balanced lives. To me that echoes Maria Montessori's 'freedom within limits.'
I think I sort of compromised on this one, simply for practical reasons. You can't force a kid to fall asleep! In a way, sleep is always self-regulated. So we had bedtimes but once in your bed, if a child chose to read or listen to an audio book or do suduko puzzles or sit in bed coloring or whatever, that was fine. They did have to stay in their beds pretty much. And while I wasn't a tyrant about getting into bed exactly at the same time every night, we did have a general routine. My husband often worked late. We are on the east coast and he had a major client on the west coast. So he often worked until 8 p.m. By the time he'd driven home it was 8:30 or 8:45. But he absolutely adored reading to the kids. So he'd read to them for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and then they'd go off to bed. This was when he was actually home. He traveled a lot for work as well. So I guess we had latish bedtimes anyway, but after reading and prayers, it was off to your bedroom where you had to stay in bed and do quiet things until you fell asleep.
When he was out of town, I'll admit that the kids got to bed earlier simply because I always struggled against burn out by the end of the day. So bedtimes made me more pleasant. I needed a break by 9 p.m. or so, for sure!
I did not like the kids to play video games or watch TV after dinner. Sometimes they would if they had a friend over or, if, I don't know, somehow things were different, perhaps a new baby or some family members being sick or something like that. But mostly I didn't like TV after dinner. Now sometimes when they got older they would watch TV with my husband, if there was a particular thing my husband wanted to watch. I remember that I gave my husband a DVD set of that old TV show Green Acres, with Eddie Albert and Zsa Zsa Gabor. We had both thought it was really funny growing up. His mom was dying of cancer that summer and he was spending a lot of time with her. When he got home he was emotionally exhausted. He was very close to his mom. So we would sit as a family and watch Green Acres and laugh and laugh - deep, healing belly laughs. It was truly therapeutic for my husband.
But anyway, the TV watching was an exception rather than the rule. I used the TV (mostly educational TV) in the afternoon as a break time for me, if we didn't have anything else scheduled.
So anyway, I never thought the idea of letting your kid play video games into the night was a wholesome one. There were, to me, so many dangers there! For one thing my kids would be really grumpy if they didn't get their routine sleep. We hardly did sleepovers! If a kid slept over at a friends house I usually had to deal with the unpleasant aftermath for a couple of days. It wasn't worth it to me! I wanted my kids to develop wholesome habits that promoted virtuous living. That might sound Polly Ann-ish, but it's true. A lot of radical unschoolers were much more interested in promoting autonomy but as a Catholic, virtue seemed a whole more important! Of course you need the autonomy to choose virtue. But I didn't think that staying up late, messing up your sleep patterns to play video games was healthy. To me it deliberately made it harder for the kid to learn to control his emotions and stay on an even keel.
And I didn't want everyone sleeping in all the time because inevitably we'd have some kind of an early morning appointment somewhere and then how do you get the kid up who has been up most of the night? It becomes painful and throws a monkey wrench into family living. When you are a family, especially with many young children, it's like being on a team. Everyone needs to cooperate to get things done, like meals, and getting to appointments, etc. If everyone is off doing their own thing, disregarding what else is going on in the family's universe, it makes for a lot of unnecessary conflict. You all have to learn to pull together and you can't learn that if everyone is off being self-indulgent.
Later on, when my youngest son was struggling with depression, we found out that he has SAD. And one of the first things his psychiatrist said was getting regular sleep where he wakes at the same time each morning and gets out into morning sunshine, was important for him. The doctor said that many teens suffer from mild depression and that if they just changed this one thing, it usually helps them a lot. Teens are growing incredibly. They are in the middle of a developmental boom. They need more sleep, not less. Messing up your circadian rhythms is a major factor in depression. And the fact is if you sleep in, you won't get that morning sunshine which is really important for serotonin production! I think our natural body clock, our circadian rhythms, need to be respected. We live in an artificial world, detached and alienated and unable to even recognize what our bodies crave for health.
The other thing is I don't think kids should up with late with unlimited access to things on line. There is a lot of horrible stuff out there that kids can stumble across. These things can do permanent damage!
So to protect kids, to respect natural bodily rhythms and for family peace, I think it is the parent's prerogative to regulate these elements of life. We know that too much screen time affects a child's brain development. We know, to be healthy, kids need to get off the couch and move. A lot! We know this stuff is addicting! As a Catholic, I believe we live in a fallen world. Part of that fallen nature is to be trapped into addiction. As Bishop Barron has often said, sin is addiction. The addict always thinks that getting his fix of whatever he is addicted to is a good thing! Just one more drink and things will be better, the addict tells himself. Just one more slice of cake! Just one more porn video, just one more video game and I'll be happy! And then I can function! But it is just the opposite. The sinner always thinks the sin he is being tempted to do is somehow a 'good.' But this is deceptive. In the very short term, it might temporarily assuage certain impulses or longing, but in the long term it is very destructive. It warps the sinners outlook, it make him more and more a prisoner of his lusts and lack of self-control. Sin is real. Addiction is real. Brain and physical development are real needs for a growing child They need to happen in the most optimum context a parent can provide.
But I don't think a parent needs to micromanage or rule arbitrarily over the child when it comes to regulating these things. The best advice I ever got was to simply provide attractive alternatives to whatever the child craves, so that they learn to make good choices. You can model moderation. If you provide a smorgasbord of good healthy food to fill up on and then pull out the cookies so everyone can have one or two - that's moderation. If you say, for example: Okay,you can play video games until 4 p.m. but then we are going for a walk or we are going to work on such and such project or what have you, then the child knows video games are just one element in an interesting life. If you make the family routine balanced and wholesome, the child gets used to that and things don't become addicting and you don't have to go to the extreme of going through this supposedly 'self-regulating' phase that may or may not prove to be true.
I do think some kids can self-regulate about some things all on their own. I remember when the issue of finding our shoes before we had to get in the car became a really annoying thing. The kids would take their shoes off anywhere and then we'd never be able to find them to get out the door. I was trying to make them put them in the same place every day but it seemed an uphill battle and at some point I gave up. But then one of my kids, my oldest son who'd been officially labeled ADHD started always putting his shoes at the same place in his room each night. No one else did this (including myself!) but he did. In this one tiny area, he taught himself, to be orderly. We all admired him immensely for this! LOL.
One of my mottoes for raising kids is 'a light touch is better than a heavy hand.' Instead of being strict and rigid, use your creative energy to create wholesome routines that gives kids well-balanced lives. To me that echoes Maria Montessori's 'freedom within limits.'
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