Another parenting article - The power of No!

The Power and Gift of Saying No

• Written by Montessori Teacher

17   

As I sit at my kitchen table, I observe that Spring is in the air! I am watching a family of sandhill cranes showing off their new chicks, dragonflies fluttering about, and a family of otters scampering across the back of the pond. This morning, a neighbor reminded me to be mindful of my child and dog in the backyard because of the alligators who reside in the pond and the fact that it is mating season. Alas, Spring is in the air! Spring and the birds and bees!
Which turns my thoughts to my own child and a quickly approaching conversion about such a topic, as I envision my son as a teenager, a young adult, and a grown man.
Why is it Important for Children to Learn How to Say “No” to Parents:
When our children are young, the most important people in their lives are their parents. Little arms around the neck and kisses on the cheek are plentiful everyday. But soon, the most important people for our children become their peers and friends.
Today, my child is 5  years old. He clearly and abundantly expresses his love for me as his parent with his words and his actions everyday. But as he grows, and my kisses and hugs become less welcome, where will he turn to for attention, affection, and “love”?  Will he know how to be respectful of himself and others?  Will he be safe emotionally, mentally, and physically?  These are the questions that keep me awake at night.
What Parents Can Do Right Now to Encourage Saying “No” to Peers:
My solution?  I give my child the gift of the power to say ‘no’ to me on occasion. I do so not because I am a permissive parent, but because I believe that if my child does not feel safe enough to tell me an occasional ‘no’ to my request, then he will not be able to say no to his friends and peers when he is asked to experiment with drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and sex. I do so, because my wish is that he learn how to take care of himself. Finally, I do so because I love him.
To me, being a parent is about unconditional love and parenting with the end in mind. So sometimes, I will accept a respectful ‘no,’ knowing that I am envisioning a teenager who will be able to say no to his peers, and striving to raise a human being that will find healthy and safe ways to meet his needs for love and affection.
I invite you to offer the same gift to your own children. Spring is in the air, bringing with it new opportunities, new beginnings, and perhaps, a new way of thinking about the power of saying “no.”
By Rachel Wallace Reid, Certified Montessori Teacher and Parent Educator

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Sign of the times

These economic times are challening, no-one can deny that, this week I was led to this post in SecED and I have to say it summed up many of my feelings.
This is the link here but I am also going to paste the article in case the link expires.
http://www.sec-ed.co.uk/cgi-bin/go.pl/article/article.html?uid=90321;category_uid=115;section=Opinion;type_uid=7

SecEd: On Your Side: A teacher’s lament as the cuts hit hard - 08 Mar 2012

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Joanna Davies
Since last February, when I was informed of the decision to close three of the courses offered for PGCE secondary including the art and design course that I have led for nearly 10 years, I have I felt like Malificent the bad fairy at Sleeping Beauty’s christening – uninvited and irate.

What has concerned me more even than my own predicament has been the future of those who were due to start their teacher training last September and those who planned to do so in the future.

If the course had failed the students or if I had been inept, I could perhaps understand, but that isn’t true – Ofsted rated the course outstanding and I am proud of the record of student retention and the success of their achievement and recruitment into the teaching profession.

The course I ran, like many other arts courses, was endangered as a result of short-sighted thinking that calculates that these subjects are non-essential luxuries outside of the core of sciences, mathematics and languages.

Our current government has established its position through the EBacc and by slashing funding for arts courses in higher education, despite the undisputed reality that the creative industries in this country are as valuable and much more highly regarded than the financial sector.

In education, the arts have been the key to success for many young people and the schools they attend. If you lose those teachers of music, dance, art and drama whose subjects are usually their passion and whose rooms are open every lunchtime and after school to facilitate moments of rare pleasure, excitement and courage in performance and display that punctuate the endless cycle of modules, levels, revision and testing, testing, testing, imagine what might be left?

In truth, I am angry and sad – and rather scared. With the reality that what I do is not valued, I need to look ahead. I find myself having to reconfigure not just my career, but many other aspects of my life. Since my teens, I have been altruistic enough to do something of use to society, with enough stamina to work in some pretty challenging environments, going part-time when my children were babies to keep something of a career for the future. I have paid into pension pots and topped them up so that I am not dependent when I am older.

I have no wardrobe full of shoes or photo album full of pictures of exotic holidays and here I am, adjusting to working until my late 60s or longer for a significantly smaller pension because not only is my fund (along with all other public sector workers) being raided to help repay what the bankers gambled away, but instead of being rewarded for being a responsible working mother I am to be punished by having my pension averaged out over all those impoverished years of part-time work and the fact that I have achieved a certain standing in working life ignored, making choices between paying off a mortgage or helping my children not to accrue enormous debt should they decide to educate themselves beyond school level.

And what do I tell my daughters? It’s always been tough to be a girl and although there is the tiniest spark of fight in this generation of school-leavers, marching against the government, marching for the right to safety and dignity for women in a society that has moved on only in millimetres since my own teenage years in the 1970s, they stand to lose the most from the decisions of this government that no-one voted for or endorsed.

Why would girls pay as much as boys for an education that may lead to a career that, unless they are prepared to sacrifice the right and need to bear children, will be interrupted and curtailed, meaning that the cost of their qualifications is automatically higher and will take significantly longer to pay off? Why would girls bother to maintain a career (if they are lucky enough to have one) once they have a family when their pension is averaged out over its length meaning it will include maternity leave, part-time work and pauses – despite equal commitment to their family, community and to our society?

• Joanna Davies is a senior lecturer in art and design at Roehampton University. The editor of SecEd is Pete Henshaw. Email editor@sec-ed.co.uk