It seems like every time I talk to one of my mom friends, the conversation ultimately takes the same turn. After updates on how their little ones are doing, how tired they are, what they’re doing to take care of themselves, the real concerns come up. They all wonder if their child is developing properly.
Is she saying enough words? When will he finally start sleeping through the night? Is my child's hesitancy around strangers normal or cause for concern? Are we doing enough? The questions are endless. The worry is incessant. But one mother, a developmental scientist who studies children’s growth across various cultures, has at least two things parents can take off their list of worries.
The researcher’s parenting anti-advice recently went viral on social media.
Dorsa Amir is a postdoctoral researcher at the UC Berkeley Department of Psychology where she studies child development. Recently, Amir took some of her knowledge from the classroom and shared it with the world in a Twitter thread. The information and the comfort it’s given a lot of parents have caused the thread to go viral.
Not everything has to be educational.
First, Amir asserts that not everything we do with kids has to be educational. It's OK for them to just play however they want to play.
“I’m a developmental scientist who studies how children grow & learn across cultures,” Amir began. “I’m also an American mom who feels the extreme pressure put on parents in the West. I'm here to offer you some parenting ANTI-advice — here are a few things you can worry less about."
"It's truly completely okay (& indeed, good) for kids to play for the sake of play. They don't have to be learning the alphabet or animal noises. They can just do whatever silly thing they want to do. They are ALWAYS learning!" Amir tweeted.
Kids don't have to be taught all the time.
Secondly, Amir says we put way too much pressure on ourselves to always be teaching our kids things and that it's totally unnecessary.
Amir shared a story of how at her son’s indoor gymnastics class, the instructor sat the children down, held up a ball and moved it from side to side. The intent was the teach the children how to track objects with their eyes.
Amir said such an exercise is extremely unnecessary.
“In fact, active & direct instruction from an adult is the rarest form of teaching in human history,” she tweeted. “Kids know how to learn in other ways — like observation — & they're extremely good at it.”
Amir said it’s important not to try to shield our children from too much unpleasantness.
Amir’s other lessons include letting your children learn how to manage their boredom, and the importance of children feeling and processing negative emotions. She said you don’t have to buy your kids 600 toys, but also shouldn’t feel guilty if you choose to. Amir shared the importance of children engaging in and learning to solve conflict with their peers.
Children love mimicking adults.
In all of her research, Amir found that children for all time, across various cultures, loved mimicking adults. She encouraged parents to take advantage of that fact.
“Give 'em some actual chores to do around the house,” Amir said. “It's the best of both worlds; you get help & they get to help. No need for a toy broom; give 'em the real thing.”
Give yourself grace.
Amir said that her favorite bit of parenting advice came from her advisor Alison Gopnik’s book, The Gardener & The Carpenter: “We should tend to our children like we tend to a garden, offering support & nourishment & letting them take whatever shape they'll take. We're not building chairs.”
Lastly, Amir said to give yourself some grace and patience. “Even with a literal PhD & over a decade of research experience on these topics, I still struggle to not let the pressure get to me. It's a LOT. So, I hope this has helped, just a tiny bit,” she said.
It definitely did.
