It is popular belief that women are better caretakers than men. I would also say that women are better caretakers than men. In my house growing up it was always my mother that was the disciplinary figure, because she was more reasonable. If my dad was mad, then not only were you really in trouble, but you were in for getting yelled at. My mother always saw yelling as counter productive, “You can’t really get your message through to them if they are too nervous from your yelling, it will all just be a big blur of fear.” So this being her philosophy she liked to “talk things out”, or what my older brother called “talking things to death!” With the boys, who don’t usually like extremely long discussions about anything, talking for a really long time about what you did wrong was, in some cases punishment enough, or scary enough for them to rethink things, before they act on them.
People have many different ways of learning; when you are very young you may learn through using senses. Many also learn by communicating with others in many various ways. When a child grasps something in their hand, they usually study it with their eyes for a period of time, smell it, and then put it in their mouth. They are using their senses to help determine what it is they are looking at. As time moves on, as human beings, we often learn from trial and error. A child throwing a temper tantrum to get what they want, if the parent, teacher or whoever might be the recipient of this action gives in to the child's demands, then “they” learned that from kicking and screaming and throwing a fit, what they want will ultimately be given to them. Every child has tried and will try to throw a fit, even the most well behaved ones. It is important to teach children early that throwing a tantrum is not a resolution to the problem.
Most parents do their best to try and instill the objective abilities of problem solving in their children but most of the time, problem solving, when you are dealing with other people, which is usually the kind of problem solving that you will need to do, is done through talking. It makes children to be spoken to and use their words in response to explain how they are feeling.
That is the primary reason that I believe women are better at handling children when they have tantrums. In Web MD’s article “How Men and Women Handle Stress Differently” , it states that when women get stressed they respond with "tending and befriending" -- that is, nurturing those around them and reaching out to others.” When a child throws a tantrum, it does inflict stress. If women are stressed they tend to make themselves feel better by talking and making an effort to solve the problem. Although this is an effective method, there still seems to be a flaw in discovering the precise answer. The article also stated that when men get stressed they tend to “lean foward the tried and true fight or flight response when it comes to stress -- either bottling it up and escaping, or eitherf fighting back.”. This does not help when dealing with a small child who is really doing nothing worse than just “testing the waters”. They seem to go as far as they can in order to see how much they can get away with, a common problem solving technique that we, as people naturally go to.
A child grows out of having tantrums as they mature with age. Another article from Web MD “Preventing Temper Tantrums in Children” says that the reason temper tantrums occur is “when kids are still learning how to communicate effectively.” It does not always result from bad behavior but in means, a natural reaction to certain situations. If that is so then “bottling it up” or “fighting back” would be a waste of a good learning opportunity for any child of any age.. So ultimately it is typically “better” for the woman to handle the situations involving children with tantrums over men who handle the situation very differently in their own unique way. It allows the opportunity for the child to learn that throwing a tantrum will not get you what you want, while in contrast, using your words is a better way to help communicate in the future, if, and when you do want something that you maybe shouldn't have.
If it is true that the job of a parent is similar to that of a teacher then wouldn't it be in the best interest of the child to be managed under someone with which they can receive more of a benefit? Yes it is better for the child and they have more to gain. Men offer extremely valuable qualities to give to the child through example, things that usually only men exhibit; but as far as who should discipline the child while they have a temper tantrum, I believe females are the better choice.
I think it depends on the child to decide which parent is more lenient. In some cases it's the father and in some cases it's the mother.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think it depends on the parent. There are mothers that yell more than the father so it depends on which parent has that role. I also think, that a child will listen to the parent that knows how to talk to them and not yelling.
ReplyDeleteI guess that is true. I said at one point that if you give in to the demands of a child while they throw a hissy fit then they learn that tantrums are an effective way of communicating. But women are better communicators so they would be less likely to m=be more lenient.
ReplyDeleteIt all depends on the parents who are raising the child because a child only acts the way you allow them to.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the majority of women are probably better at handling temper tantrums. But there are also some men that are better. Like others have commented, it all depends on the person. I think hormones might have something to do with the way men handle stress compared to women.
ReplyDeleteI agree with jade, it all depends on which parent has the most authority. The husband might not know how to react towards those types of thing.
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