Follow up thoughts on training children

To clarify some points from my earlier post....

I think what I was getting at in the post was the extent (amount) to which we should train children and the scope (types of things) of the training. I'm assuming that we should train and children should obey their parents. I'm still wondering about the things I'm asking Dylan to obey and whether or not they are reasonable or right. Once I decide to tell Dylan he needs to do something it then becomes an issue of obedience but my thinking originally was more about the earlier step in deciding what I'm asking him to do.

With regard to expectations, my comment that I think we expect too much from kids is that we expect too much of them without training. You can't expect a child to do something you want him or her to do if you haven't taught them what it means to do what you are asking. A baby can't be expected to be put in a crib and fall asleep by himself without training, or a toddler who has never been asked to be quiet and usually gets lots of praise when she says things because she's learning how to talk can't be expected to all of the sudden be quiet when you take them to into a museum. And I think some parents too often assume that the training will work faster than it does or think if you tell a kid three days earlier not to touch something that they can remember that and won't touch it again without having to be told again.

However, I think I have just realized that I was erring too much on the side of thinking that training takes longer than we think, at least the negative training (as opposed to positive reinforcement when they do something good). You know, I was just being too darn patient...:) At some point you have to say this isn't working and we have to try something else. That is where I am at right now. So, just like when I was pregnant or right after Dylan was born and I had an issue I felt like I needed to resolve, I am researching and talking to other parents and pretty much obsessing over this right now. Ah, it feels good. I felt like I haven't had anything to obsess over in a while. Maybe if I could just think about things (especially child rearing strategies) more continually then I wouldn't have these obsessive times. I think my problem is that I think - there is a problem, I need to fix it, let me analyze the heck out it and fix it so I can forget about it. [My husband would tell you that I'm not like that at all because he often sees me make a decision and continually question it and stress over the negatives of the decision that was made (even though those negatives outweighed the positive). I would agree with him that I'm like that as well. Not sure how to reconcile those two except to say that I'm a complex woman and I respond differently depending on the situation but I can't define what makes me respond differently at the moment and this post has gone really off topic so I'm going to stop now.]