NRU parenting edition, rant-y

I love small children.  LOVE THEM.  I find them infinitely fascinating and hi-larious.  I connect with them more often than not ... sometimes it is just through the eyes though sometimes it is talking or playing -- even with complete strangers.

I have always loved small children (I like the bigger ones, too), though I have never wanted to birth them.  I am also utterly perplexed by why so many parents of small children do not seem to know the first thing about these little creatures.

In this vein, I noted with interest and a little confusion some posts about toddlers.  While this one is hi-larious, and clearly true for many, many parents, I wondered at the post because it was so obvious.  Was it just for comedy or did this writer think it was a revelation?  I was also somewhat sad to see the way the parents respond in these "dialogues" because they frequently seem to not understand what the children are doing.

This other piece, nice but in some ways pedantic, also is perplexing.  Could it be that parents of toddlers not know what children are doing when they engage in this kind of negotiation or devolve into tantrums? 

Let it be known, I thoroughly enjoy walking through these conversations with my niece (who is four) and not so much with my nephew (who is 11).  I can see how tiresome it can become after long periods of time --  the "instructive" piece from the *child development specialist* points out the long term benefits and how adults can *forgive* themselves for getting it wrong sometimes.  The more often you are willing to be the adult (which sometimes equals the bad guy) the less often this conversation will turn into a meltdown. 

Kids *are* super skilled at pushing buttons, particularly in their parents, they are nothing if not the most able observers of the human condition.  Just ask any kid -- she or he will tell you all about the people around him/her.  If kids are watching adults meltdown in order to get their way, they have already learned that this is the easiest way to what they want.

When I saw that video about the six year old pleading for her mother and father to get along, I did not applaud her -- I felt sorry for her.  How much of this has she had to live through that she is not using it for her own gain (a kid's primary job/objective), but rather as a way to get her parents to stop warring.  Let's let kids be kids ... in all their sometimes annoying glory -- and let's be the adults who help them to learning how to deal with the world in a respectful way!

I did warn in the title it was rant-y!