Parenting Styles

I've been babysitting my sister's baby for several weeks now (only one day a week thankfully) and I have been noticing that my parenting techniques may vary from theirs just slightly.

For example, Joshua has been just getting into turbo-crawling -- the kind where you walk up behind to grab him, and in a split second he is shooting across the room. Well most of the time he just wanders around the house while I am getting something accomplished. He will come visit me from time to time, and what usually happens is that he will crawl up to wherever I am and then sit in front of me. I continue to watch him out of the corner of my eye and he will then begin to "climb" whatever is near.

There are quite a few stages in this "climbing" activity and he normally only makes it to the first unassisted. He crawls up until his head touches whatever it is he wants to climb (table leg, cabinet, ottoman, wall, etc.). Then, he reaches a hand out and "holds on", then releases the other hand from the floor, and IMMEDIATELY smacks his head into whatever he was trying to climb.

So then he rolls onto his back (kinda like a dog) and lays there doing the breath-holding cry while shaking. And what do I do? Whatever I had been doing. The kid does this about 23 times a day. I am SO NOT going to run over and pick him up each time. Instead, Sarah runs over and yells, "Walk it off, Joshua! Walk it off!"

The screaming usually stuns him into silence, and he will then flip back over and begin the whole process over again.

So the parenting difference? I once emailed my sister and told her that her child would be arriving slightly damaged after work today. She emailed me back to ask what happened, and I explained to her in slightly less detail than above.

When she arrived to pick him up after work, the FIRST THING she did was to examine his head for new dings. Mostly they were just red spots that eventually went away, but two weeks ago there was apparently one that didn't. A couple days later at church, she brought him up to me and said, "See that? He got that at your house."

Well, I guess I wasn't supposed to laugh, but I did. She's still a new mommy and doesn't find it funny when kids keep doing the same dumb thing over and over. To me -- a kid releasing his hands from the floor before having something to hold onto and then head-butting something over and over again is pretty amusing.

Let's just say we don't talk about it anymore.