Parenting Myths I Believed

Don't give your child coloring books because it stunts their creativity. Instead give him/her blank pieces of paper and plenty of art supplies and let him/her come up with his/her own creations.

I know, it was dumb to believe this. But in my defense I was also under the impression that coloring books are expensive. The reality is that coloring books are dirt cheap in the dollar bins at Target, kids love them, and there's nothing wrong with them. Yes, there are some kids that can come up with creative things without being taught, but I've found that if I just give my kids art supplies they get overwhelmed and upset. I used to give Kevin scratch paper and crayons and try to get him to color, but he would get tense and usually refuse to even try. All he wanted was to tell me what to draw and watch me do it. Now that I know that he has dyspraxia I understand why he did that. Once he was given a model for how to draw a person he calmed down a lot and now he will draw all sorts of things. There's nothing wrong with giving them pictures to color and demonstrating for them how to draw basic things like cars, people, and trees. A lot of kids need to observe and then learn.

Kids need to be left to play by themselves so that they can learn social skills.

I agree that there is merit to this statement. It's good for kids to play without parents telling them what to do and micromanaging everything. Plus sometimes the magic of pretending goes away when a parent comes in for some reason. But at the same time social skills do not come naturally to kids, and they need coaching so that they can learn to interact with other people and get along well. I've learned a lot about this from taking Kevin to therapy. They often have kids play together and give them a lot of guidance for what to say and how to share. This week I brought Heidi with us to therapy and Kevin's OT had them play a game together at the end to see how they play together. I hadn't realized until she pointed it out how little they communicate with each other. For example, Kevin would grab things out of Heidi's hands without asking. I realized that a lot of conflicts happen because Kevin and Heidi don't communicate what they are going to do and they often expect each other to read their minds. These are problems that would be better treated by playing with them, observing closely, and giving lots and lots of guidance for what they should be saying or doing together. If we don't spend some time playing together with our children and their friends we miss things like that, and they miss out on learning important social skills. Some kids are better at it than others, but it doesn't come naturally and they often need to be directly taught. My guess is that most parents should probably play MORE with their kids, not less.