My friend Trish posted this article on Facebook the other day, â??8 Tips For Raising An Only Childâ? (from http://www.mindbodygreen.com). Since we only have one child, the title hooked me and reeled me in. Iâ??m always curious as to what â??tipsâ? people might have for me so I clicked the link (actually I am just looking for what they got wrong).
I will list the tips but you can go read the details:
1.    Always have friends over
2.    Be fully present with your child
3.    Keep busy in the community
4.    Hang out with other families
5.      Let the child help you as much as possible
6.      Have a movie night in your adult bed and let them sleep with you
7.      Pick an activity and sign up your child
8.      Bring one or two of her friends with us when we go out to do fun things
It seems like a logical list but I will give my opinion on each only child tip anyways.
#1 I agree with this; itâ??s good social interaction and weâ??ve done this a lot since the day Sammy was born. We have also taken him out quite a bit so he has always had that exposure.
#2 I agree with this one too but I cannot always be fully present. I try my damndest but sometimes there is other stuff going on that needs to be dealt with. No parent can always be fully presentâ?¦but we can certainly try.
#3 Agreedâ?¦I think this is good whether you have one child or ten. Being active in the community through groups and organizations or by taking part in community events is important for kids to see.
#4 This one we do not do as much, we hang out with a lot of people but not â??familiesâ? specifically. I think as long as your only child has plenty of exposure to other people itâ??s fine.
#5 Annie fun online poker is really good with this one and I have followed her lead. Sheâ??ll even ask him to help with laundry or something and he will crawl to the laundry room. So it seems he is already learning about the â??helpâ? aspect and that will only continue to get stronger. Annie will also have him in his high chair when she is cooking so he can â??helpâ? her cook. She likes to give him the big butcher knife to cut up the vegetables (kidding people, just kidding).
#6 This is half cool in my book. I have no problem with him watching cartoons or a movie in our bed but there shall be no sleeping in our bed. If you disagree, right on, but we pay the mortgage in this house.
#7 Oh yes, activities. Things very well may change when Sammy is older but my thinking right now is that activities are great but I just canâ??t see myself driving all over the state of California taking him to soccer games or whatever. We will chalk this one up to us being selfish. Iâ??m totally down with activities in moderation. I will however go to any activity that allows parents to drink wine.
#8 Well, first of all, Sammy is not a herâ?¦he is a he. Secondly, Iâ??m cool with this so long as heâ??s been good and it fits in with what weâ??re doing.
You know, there are so many â??tipsâ? out there on how to do everything. I really think we need to learn to turn the volume down on that stuff. You need to do whatever works for you, so long as your kid/s are not being abused go ahead and rock it. No matter what you do your kid will grow up with some dysfunction, some flaw or flawsâ?¦thatâ??s life. Live your life and figure out a way to tune out those opinionated, â??perfectâ? parents. Youâ??re doing just fine.
Thanks for sharing, definitely something on our radar, as both of us grew up with sibs and now raising an only one. We’ve gravitated a bit more toward the activity side as “always having someone over” isn’t our speed so much. I think mostly it’s good to be aware of giving enough social opportunities one way or the other…but needs to fit the child and parent needs!
Well said, David. “but needs to fit the child and parent needs”, I like that. That’s how it should be, always. Cheers to only children!! 🙂
My niece is an only child and she grew up shy. Now that she’s a grown up, I can see that somehow she managed to overcome her shyness through the years and through school. Though it is still evident that she can’t make eye contact to someone she’s not really close to, after some time she will adjust. Now, as a grown up, she enjoys crafts and stuffs she can do alone in her room. She grew up as the only kid in the house with all of us around and we, especially her parents had a hard time when she started school as she finds it extra hard with strangers.
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