If your kindergartner doesn't want to participate in circle time, that's fine. If your son doesn't want to share his toy truck with a peer during recess, that's OK, too.
These are concepts Heather Shumaker advocates as "renegade parenting" in her new book, "It's OK to Go Up the Slide."
The book, released in March from TarcherPerigee, a division of Penguin Random House, is an addition to her first parenting title, "It's OK Not to Share."
Shumaker's parenting guides are born of her experience as a Traverse City, Mich., mother of two sons, ages 11 and 8. Her ideas originated from her mother, a teacher at the School for Young Children in Columbus, Ohio, where unstructured play was encouraged.
"I went to school there as a 4- and 5-year-old and my mother taught there for 40 years," Shumaker, 48, told the Associated Press. "Children who come out of that program are unusually skilled in conflict mediation and coping with their emotions."
The book tackles the challenges of parenting young children through the difficult years of middle school. It touches on the benefits of free play – running, yelling and wrestling – as a necessary component for learning.
Free play is important on many levels, according to Shumaker. The cultural fear that our kids will fall behind if we don't limit play and hurry them academically is counterproductive, she said.
Shumaker says it's important not to allow conventions of parenting to become our habits generation after generation.
One such convention is disciplining a kid who doesn't want to be in kindergarten circle time. The child is immediately labeled as defiant – not able to fit in – which causes behavioral problems later.
"A kid doesn't have to do what the group's doing so long as their actions don't disrupt the group," Shumaker said. Sometimes adults need to allow kids to "do what they do."
Playtime is another area where parenting needs improvement, according to Shumaker. It causes a child to feel awful when adults take away a toy to demonstrate sharing with another kid.
The idea may be to encourage generosity, but it actually delays the development of sharing. The best way is to allow your child to play with the toy until he tires of it and feels that "rush of good feelings" handing it off to the next kid.
The book also explores banning homework in elementary school, making recess a right instead of a privilege, not forcing children to kiss relatives and more.
If you'd like to learn more about Shumaker's "renegade rules" for raising confident and compassionate kids, you can purchase "It's OK to Go Up the Slide: Renegade Rules for Raising Confident and Creative Kids" through Barnes & Noble as a paperback for $9.29.
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